The DECISION 


LEON de TINSEAU 


FRANK ALVAH DEARBORN 





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Page 129 


Frontispiece 





THE DECISION 


From the French of 
LEON DE TINSEAU 


Translated by 
FRANK ALVAH DEARBORN 





ILLUSTRATIONS BY 


JOSEPH CUMMINGS CHASE 
AND 
CAROLINE PEART 


G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 
























CopyrIGHT, 1912, BY 


W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY 





. G. 














CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 
I. Paut Cuooses A Mirirary CAREER . 


II. On THE Frontier oF Morocco... 
TI]. SERGEANT WALTER .. 2 « ¢ « » 
TV. Tue Coup pe GRACE. . 1. 2. 2 eo 

eae SOO EW a iki ata ee eae 

VI. COUNTESS DE LA GUERNERIE ... . 
VII. Tae MEERSCHAUM PIPE. . . 2... 

WIE: (RUE DE LE’ Y VETTE fe Sore ee) eso 
IX. Tse Meetmnc Wits Doctor TucHEmM 
al AME ETROTHAD,|» 6° 05 35 'he | fetes je’ 
XI. “Now You Know My Secret” . " . 
"XII. Tae RevenaTion . . 2 1 se es 
XIN. Tue Decision . . - 2 © © «© @ 


RLQSSAT 


125 
146 
163 
1$0 
199 
217 


232 


mrss 





ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 
Madame de la Guernerie swayed like an appari- 
GN oe a ei te ee. SrOmes place. £20 


** T should like to buy that pipe of yours. What 
f° do you ask for it?” 3. 6. ke se ee RG 


‘This was all the ceremony of their betrothal . . 195 








THE DECISION 


I 


PAUL CHOOSES A MILITARY CAREER 


Tarragnoz the painter was among his 
colleagues a sort of favorite. His style, 
although neither obscure nor inacces- 
sible, brought him fame and fortune, 
for the public of forty years ago had 
never accepted the standard now re- 
quired that art be difficult. He sold his 
pictures at high prices, quickly became 

7. 


8 THE DECISION 


well known, if not illustrious, and 
saved money without being penurious. 
Finally, he had the opportunity to 
marry, not his model, as might be sup- 
posed, but a poor orphan of the best so- 
cial standing; a girl of splendid mind 
with just enough Bohemian tint to 
amuse the men of the world without 
causing the comment “‘sale bourgeois’’ 
from the painter’s associates. 

Their married life was brief, for the 
young husband soon died and the wife 
who adored him did not long survive. 
As for their son, then six years of age, 
it is impossible even with the best of in- 
tentions to pretend that fortune fa- 
vored him during the early years of his 
life. His paternal uncle, who imagined 
himself to be something of an invalid, 





THE DECISION 9 


took charge of the orphan, who fortu- 
nately was not poor, and placed him in 
a first-class school. Here young Paul 
worked just enough to keep up with 
the average minds, except in the class 
of design. There, from the first day, 
he held and never left the foot of the 
elass, 

Vainly his anxious master tried to 
stimulate his pride by holding before 
his eyes the moral obligation to be a 
good painter which rested upon the son 
of the famous Tarragnoz. 

Pushed to the limit, this rebel against 
atavism, who was then fourteen years 
old, declared that he detested painting. 

‘*First, the smell is too bad and, be- 
sides, I do not wish to be like my father, © 
who arose with the servants and half 





10 THE DECISION 





the time came to dinner only after we 
had eaten a course or two.’’ 

‘‘But, my friend, when one bears the 
name Tarragnoz!’’ 

‘“When one bears the name of Tar- 
ragnoz one ought not to make bad pic- 
tures. Rest assured, sir, I shall not do 
5 le 

‘“‘Then,’’ prophesied the master, 
‘‘vou will be another example of idle- 
ness dissipating a fortune acquired by 
work.”’ 

Becoming more and more serious and 
with a slight movement of the head 
which indicated a firm decision, young 
Paul responded: 

‘‘No, I shall enter Saint-Cyr. At 
least if I am retired before having 
passed the grade of captain no one will 


THE DECISION 11 


refer to the military glories of my fam- 
ily.’’ 

It was easy to see that, although he 
might never become a painter, he prom- 
ised to be a good logician and he al- 
ready showed a tendency to personali- 
ties which caused his comrades to apply 
to him the unjust epithet of ‘‘Snob.’’ 
He was not a snob, but he possessed an 
independence of mind which was car- 
ried a little too far. Given a situation 
in which another person would feel 
himself obliged to do a certain thing by 
commonplace conventionality, his first 
thought would be not to do the obvious 
thing. 

Although he failed to appreciate it,. 
this love for unbeaten paths in a large 
measure saved him from the danger of 





12 THE DECISION 


bad examples. Weak men very often 
walk irregularly through fear of being 
considered singular if they walk 
straight. The opposite sentiment in 
young Tarragnoz on many occasions 
took the place of religious principles 
that he lacked; for his only moral 
equipment was what he had been able 
to absorb in two hours of Ethics each 
week. And he had neither father nor 
mother to serve him as private teachers. 

At eighteen he was admitted to Saint- 
Cyr as he had announced. At the same 
time his guardian, an old bachelor ab- 
sorbed by his pills and powders and 
fancied stomach trouble, gave him his 
freedom and rendered his accounts. He 
could only predict that the young man 
was going to ruin himself, if not during 





THE DECISION 13 


the sojourn at the school, at least soon 
after leaving. 

‘*Why2?’’ asked Paul. 

‘*Because,’’ responded the prophet, 
‘‘a young man in your situation always 
ruins himself.’’ 

“‘Oh! not always,’’ said he with a lit- 
tle mockery in his eyes. 

Already skeptical, he divined that 
prophets always count upon aiding the 
accomplishment of their prophecy. 

However, it is impossible to conceal 
the fact that his thirty thousand pounds 
of securities had been nearly reduced to 
twenty when his second gold band was 
sewed upon his sleeve. But, in fact, this 
was not his ruin. Besides he had to his - 
credit a great capital of experience, for 
‘‘boosted’’ by the name of his father he 





14 THE DECISION 


had obtained the city of Paris as his 
first garrison. 

After having believed that he had 
known the world in the balls of the 
Academy and other similar affairs dur- 
ing the time at the Military School, Tar- 
ragnoz was now able to understand it 
fully. This young man was not hand- 
some, thank heaven, but he was robust, 





well proportioned, elegantly formed and 
with one of those unusual physiog- 
nomies which make one ask, ‘‘Who is 
he?’’ If he did not possess, or did not 
cultivate the journalistic mind which 
many women prefer, he had that inde- 
scribable personal perception generally 
known as sense of humor. 

This natural gift gave him acuteness 
and penetration which was pleasing to 


THE DECISION 15 


refined persons. He always avoided 
making wounds which would take long 
to heal. The process of healing seemed 
to him tiresome as well as painful, be- 
cause it was always the same. In fact, 
everything was ‘“‘always the same”’ in 
the life of the Parisian world, and this 
was a favorite theme of his conversa- 
tion. 

**In the year of the agricultural la- 
borer,’’ said he, ‘‘I do not find more mo- 
notony or less of the unexpected than 
in ours. He sows, he sees his grain 
shoot up, making green the plains and 
forming itself into heads of corn, he 
watches the straw become yellow. He 
cuts, he packs his harvest and takes it, 
to the market; then he commences over 
again. We ourselves have the season of 





16 THE DECISION 





dinners, the season of collections for the 
poor, the horse show where awaken the 
great passions destined to ripen after 
Easter. ‘Then comes the Salon, then the 
dog show, then Auteuil, then Long- 
champ, then the springs or the seashore, 
then the hunting, then the return to 
Paris which does not even have the ad- 
vantage of reuniting persons who have 
been separated. The Parisian in his 
horror of change decides to go to Switz- 
erland, to the Pyrenees or to Trouville, 
according as it is certain ‘that every- 
one will be there.’ ”’ 

‘““Where are you going?’’ he was 
asked on a certain day when projects 
for the summer were being considered. 

‘*T shall go to Algeria, eight hundred 
kilometres south of Oran.”’ 


THE DECISION 17 


The strangest thing was that he was 
not joking. His orderly had already 
packed his trunks. Promoted to a lieu- 
tenancy, he received, by virtue of the 
same ‘‘pull’’ which had secured for him 
Paris for his début, a place in the For- 
eign Legion, 

In this world, that is to say, in some 
Square centimetres of the ‘‘world”’ 
which form the special enclosure of a 
Parisian, this departure was the sub- 
ject of much talk. Some declared that 
he was insane, others that he was ruined, 
others that he was hopelessly in love. 
Among this number, one pretty woman, 
who had resisted his somewhat mild at- 
tacks, greatly wished to believe herself — 
responsible for the damage. In a few 
written words, which might mean much 





18 THE DECISION 





or nothing, she cast a ray of hope upon 
the battlefield too quickly abandoned. 
But Tarragnoz, who had not wnder- 
stood, drew himself out of the affair by 
a little confidence of two pages: 


Can it be true, dear Madame, that on your 
reception day, when it was impossible for me to 
appear, they really wished to talk of me and, 
after what you said, to search for the key to the 
mystery? If, as I very much doubt, they men- 
tion it again next Thursday, be good enough to 
say to your friends that I am the least mysteri- 
ous of men. I assure you that I greatly regret 
it, for it would be worth more than to be what I 
am, that is to say, an infant too advanced for 
his years, bored by the frightful monotony which 
is the result of civilization. For a society tires 
itself more in proportion as it becomes more civ- 
ilized—an unavoidable thing since the end of 
civilization is to suppress as much as possible the 
unexpected. 

Before the deluge, man, always exposed to 
the unlooked-for unpleasant meeting with two 


THE DECISION’ 19 


rows of flesh-eaters, never found the hours too 
long, be sure of that. 

Ten or twenty thousand years later our ladies 
of the manor were unacquainted with ennui. 
Every morning on arising they might hear that 
the invested dungeon was about to be assaulted 
and that—without mentioning pillage and fire— 
the most detestable surprise menaced their 
charms. 

The most trivial visit in the neighborhood 
exposed them to the danger of being swallowed 
up in the fiood, held in ransom by the marauders 
or abducted by some unscrupulous lover. Were 
they able to say if the husbands started for the 
hunt that they would not be stifled by the bears 
or disemboweled by the aurochs? If inclined to 
be flirtatious, was there not always the chance 
in sitting at table of hearing at dessert this indi- 
gestible communication: ‘‘Madame, you have 
eaten. the heart of your lover!”’ 

Civilization has suppressed all imagination, 
particularly in the matter of conjugal reprisals. 

I, dear Madame, shudder at the thought that 
until my hair is white I shall say, hear said, do 
and order the same things, with the difference 
of a little more gold upon my sleeve. 





20 THE DECISION 


The distractions of a war are less and less 
probable in our civilized military system. 

So, then, I am going into the desert to com- 
mand soldiers who for the most part hide their 
true name; and I go to fight with the jovial fel- 
lows who still cut off the heads of the wounded 
when time lacks for something worse. In other 
words, I am trying a cure of savagery; that is 
the whole mystery. Some years of this régime 
will probably suffice to make me find delightful 
that which is monotonous and, more delightful 
still, she who is adorable. You know, Madame, 
of whom I wish to speak. If you do not know, 
your hands which I kiss for a long time will be 
able to tell you. 





TARRAGNOZ. 


IT 


ON THE FRONTIER OF MOROCCO 


Two months Jater Paul opened his 
eyes at the reveille in a small zine house 
in one of the most advanced posts of 
of South Oranis. With regard to the 
sought-for surprises, this garrison, in 
the midst of the desert to which it had 
arrived by dangerous marches of three 
weeks’ duration, left nothing for even 
the most exacting to desire. But the 
troupe which he had under his orders, 
a company detached from a regiment 
of the Foreign Legion, departed from 
its usual routine more often than the 
garrison. 

21 


22 #43%THE DECISION 


In the first place, that which chiefly 
distinguishes this troupe is its manner 
of recruitment; one knows of them only 
after they are enlisted. By a deroga- 
tion of the laws of all military organiza- 
tion they require of the man presenting 
himself the single condition that he be 
able-bodied; no matter if his hair is 
growing gray and he is unable to speak 
a word of French. From where he 
comes, or why he comes, or what decep- 
tions or remorse fill his past life, no one 
demands of him. He enlists under any 
name whatever, true or false. The true 
name sometimes has suddenly disap- 
peared from the lists of our regular 
army. 

There, side by side with the Alsatian 
deserter whom we ought to salute pro- 





THE DECISION 23 


foundly, one finds the gay fellows who 
have deserted morality in all countries, 
even in ours. That concerns only them- 
selves and their Creator. To change the 
name was perhaps for them a necessity ; 
perhaps, also, the greatest and last sign 
of respect which they owed to their 
family. 

One may judge that there was no lack 
of the unexpected among soldiers re- 
eruited in this fashion. But that which 
attracted the young lieutenant, in view 
of his own natural bravery, was the evi- 
dent contempt for life shown by his men 
in the course of engagements, somewhat 
rare in the neighborhood of such a fron- 
tier. The astonishing thing was that _ 
these expatriots, who seemed to have re- 
nounced their country, remembered it 





24 THE DECISION 


in the moments of effort and peril. 
Sometimes in a charge one would hear 
a soldier cry out to himself, “Vive 
UItahie!’’ or “‘Vive la Belgique!’ some- 
times even “‘ Vive l’Allemagne!’’ and in 
the animation of their courage an ardent 
national rivalry made them warriors in 
the true sense of the word. 

That their ignorance of discipline was 
as complete as their ignorance of danger 
was something the new lieutenant was 
not long in perceiving. 

‘*My dear fellow,’’ said his captain to 
him, ‘‘get it into your head that we are 
not in the barracks of la Pépiniére here, 
nor at the grand manceuvres. Do not 
have too sharp an eye or too fine ears, 
or you will have an excellent chance of 
not dying of old age. These devils have 





THE DECISION 25 


not come here for their health nor for 
yours, and sometimes their guns ‘scat- 
ter’.”? 

“Thanks, captain, but neither have I 
come to this paradise to improve my. 
complexion.”’ 

‘*You may be sure the men know that. 
The single fact that a young man of 
family, with the appearance of pros- 
perity and without a queer history has 
exchanged Paris for the Legion has al- 
ready gained their esteem. At the right 
time you will see that they will cheer- 
fully risk their skins one for the other, 
chiefs or soldiers.”’ 

Captain Mataillet attached himself 
very quickly to his lieutenant, whom he 
overwhelmed with his confidences, even 
with his confessions. He had come up 





26 THE DECISION 


from the ranks, had always served in 
‘Algeria, and many times had got him- 
self in a bad pickle ‘‘on account of that 
damned rascal absinthe.’”’ He talked 
of that fatal liquor about the same as he 
would have spoken of a living creature, 
full of artifice, persistently lying in wait 
to do injury after the fashion of the Mo- 
roceans, 

Fortunately, in going south, the dan- 
ger of the former diminished as much as 
the latter increased, as there were no 
cafés in that far off region. 

“Tf only we could find the wells,”’ 
added he. 

When he talked of the Moroccans, one 
would have thought he was hearing a 
City police officer speaking of the 
Apaches. For him “‘ces bougres la’ 





THE DECISION 27 





were not citizens of a country jealous of 
its independence, but detestable vaga- 
bonds, thinking only of doing injury, 
capable of every atrocity, and face to 
face with whom extermination was the 
only commendable proceeding. 

*‘In fact,’’ concluded he, ‘‘if the 
scoundrels are not obstructed, perhaps 
T shall have my ear slit before my fourth 
galloon.’’ (Whenever they were to-, 
gether, Paul never heard him speak of. 
any other subject. 

Among the lower officers, Tarragnoz 
had from the first noticed his sergeant,' 
This man was a Swiss named Walter, 
who, unlike his captain, was able to talk 
upon all subjects, although he displayed 
a certain caution if one approached the 
chapter of his personal recollections. - 


28 THE DECISION 


His age, as often happens to certain 
women, seemed to vary under the in- 
fluence of the hour, of his impressions, 
or, more probably, of the return to his 
thoughts of painful periods of his past 
life. After a day of inaction, when the 
evening arrived, he would have upon his 
forehead and at the corners of his mouth 
such wrinkles as would make him ap- 
pear to be forty. The following day he 
would seem to be not over twenty, if 
they started him out early in the morn- 
ing to search the neighboring gorges and 
chase the sheep-stealers, who so quickly 
could change to assassins. Under the 
fire of the long guns, Walter shouldered 
his carbine with the coolness of a man 
shooting pigeons at Monte Carlo. His 
chief at first believed him to be fond of 





THE DECISION 29 


danger as of sport, but he soon had a 
suspicion that this blond, with the blue 
eyes, fine hands and caressing voice, 
sought in battle some things besides the 
agitation of his nerves. After a rather 
bad skirmish he felt that it was his duty 
to admonish him. 

*“‘t don’t know whether you are 
tired of life, but you ought to think 
of others who might look at the mat- 
ter differently. In such a war as we 
are carrying on, it happens that a 
wounded man costs two or three times 
as much as a dead one, because it 
is impossible to leave him in the 
hands of an enemy, whose habits you 
know.’’ 

“‘Tf T am wounded it will cost the gov- 
ernment only a single cartridge. Many 





30 THE DECISION 





of my comrades have promised to shoot 
me if they see the Moroccans come to 
take me.”’ 

“ey? said Tarragnoz, ‘‘promise you 
another thing. I will blow out the 
brains of anyone who commits a crime 
like that. You will do well to warn 
your comrades.”’ 

‘*But, lieutenant, they have promised 
to do this at my request. Your ideas 
will change upon this subject—and also 
upon others.”’ 

‘“‘Decidedly,’’ thought Paul, ‘‘the 
brave Mataillet is right, we are not in 
the barracks of la Pépiniére.’’ 

‘¢Let us see,’’ said some one in a loud 
voice, ‘‘do you believe that a man has 
the right to dispose coolly of his life in 
advance, aS a paper which one orders 


THE DECISION 31 


destroyed, so it shall not fall into indis- 
creet hands ?’’ 

“‘Hold on,’’ said Walter, laughing, 
‘one would say it is the ‘parson’ speak- 
ing.”’ 

Contrary to what one might expect, 
the personage thus designated did not 
wear a gown (to see one you would have 
to travel far), but the velvet-trimmed 
uniform of a military doctor. It is nec- 
essary to present with some care this 
original of a type which one unfortun- 
ately rarely meets. Rudolph Tucheim, 
instead of waiting to become a hero of 
romance, satisfied himself with being a 
real hero all the time; a hero with big 
spectacles, with a back bent by study 
and with a strong accent. Many acts of 
bravery had gained for him the Cross. 





32 THE DECISION 


Born at Strasbourg during the siege, 
remaining French through his passion 
for Alsace, he had joined the Legion in 
order to eare for ‘‘his dear Alsatians.’’ 
He was for them a sort of lay chaplain, 
knowing their history, possessing their 
secrets, hiding in his cantine their let- 
ters to be sent off the day after a bat- 
tle, letters which would sadden the old 
mother who had given her milk to the 
lost one, and the young woman who had 
given him her heart. 

The thing which rendered Tucheim 
worthy of his ecclesiastical nickname 
will be in the eyes of the readers a su- 
preme trait of originality ; this military 
doctor was a confirmed Catholic. In 
the Legion no one thought of blaming 
him or laughing at him. Paul Tarrag- 





THE DECISION 33 


noz, a free thinker of the most liberal 
type, refrained from doing either, but 
he was courteously astonished at one of 
their first conversations. 

*‘T do not believe,’’ said he, ‘‘that I 
have ever met a doctor who admitted 
the supernatural. In justice, I ought to 
say that I have but little resorted to 
your colleagues, as is usually the case 
with men who are in good health.’’ 

Tucheim did not willingly enter into a 
discussion upon an infrequent subject 
to please the interlocutor, but judging 
that with the lieutenant one might be 
able to approach the metaphysical do- 
main, he responded: 

**Doctors do not willingly admit the 
supernatural for the same reason which 
prevents you military men from admir- 





34 THE DECISION 


ing diplomacy. You have been taught 
that there is but one force in the world, 
the arm which kills the body. We are 
taught to prostrate ourselves before 
science, represented as all powerful and 
unique to save. In that posture, less 
fatiguing than it appears, many doctors 
remain all their lives; others, neither 
more stupid nor less courageous, raise 
the head, look above them and arrive at 
this double conclusion. First, the ani- 
mal creation is not the most important 
part of the human composition; next, 
Science, in spite of the marvelous treas- 
ures which she offers us, is summoned 
each morning before the tribunal of 
failures by a disappointed patient.”’ 
“‘Mazette! If you ever sustain that 
thesis in a congress of doctors, please 





THE DECISION 35 


give me notice that I may hasten to pre- 
vent them from knocking you down. 
Have you ever heard of Christian 
Science which abolishes the remedies 
and replaces them by prayer? Ah, well, 
my friend, you coast very near that dis- 
astrous heresy.”’ 

**Not at all. On the contrary, I do 
not wrong the doctors. There are some 
who narrow their empire and curtail 
the dispensatory in refusing to pre- 
seribe certain remedies which are par- 
ticularly efficacious. Perhaps you have 
been present at a consultation with one 
of our masters. He arrives, he handles 
and turns over the sick body. His sci- 
ence, admirably infallible, examines the 
tissues, muscles and viscera in order to 
discover their weakness or malignity. 





36 THE DECISION 


The thermometer, pulsometer, stetho- 
scope and microscope search the poor 
animal in danger of death. ‘What is 
your age, your ordinary régime, the 
food taken last evening, the precaution 
neglected, the excess committed? Of 
what did your relatives die?’ ” 

““If you please,’’ said Tarragnoz, 
‘“‘eut it short. Already I feel ill.” 

“Have no fear. The materialistic 
scholar will not go further. He leaves 
his patient forgetting to search the soul, _ 
the mistress of the body; often its ex- 
ecutioner, always its accomplice. He is 
not concerned in knowing if that soul 
suffers, in cheering its solitude, in lis- 
tening to its complaints, its fears, its 
childish caprices or its senile whims. 
Denying the existence of the soul, or 





THE DECISION 37 
prescription and starts for the other 
sick ones.”’ 

““He will not see many during the 
day,”’ objected the lientenant, “if he is 
obliged to follow the system which you 
indicate. Good-bye to fat bank accounts. 
Or, indeed, it may be necessary to have 
two prices, with or without the super- 
natural, at the choice of the patient.”’ 

“I give up convincing you,” sighed 
Tucheim, “‘you do not take seriously 
either religion or medicine. Let us see. 
Is it true that you are an atheist ?”’ 

**No. I believe in God as much as 
the Pope. But if it is necessary to re- 
cite to you my Pater——”’ r, 

“What was your age when your mo- 
ther died ?” 





38 THE DECISION 





**T scarcely knew her.’’ 

“It is indeed as I thought. I still 
have mine, and she is a saint.”’’ 

‘Then it is true that you go to con- 
fession ?’’ 

‘*Sometimes, when I am not at the ex- 
tremity of the desert. If you knew how 
good it is in certain cases.’ 


Tit 
SERGEANT WALTER 


The Parisians had soon forgotten 
Tarragnoz. To the friends of his 
father he was a fugitive; to his com- 
rades he was a hot-headed individual; 
to the world in general he was a savage; 
to his special circle, not having his name 
upon their lists, he was a pariah, purely 
and simply ignored. Some old women 
desirous of always being familiar with 
scandal, kept in good order the legend 
by which ‘‘the poor boy”’ or ‘‘that im- 
becile,’’? according to the humor of the . 
moment, had gone out of his senses on 
account of the baroness. 

39 


40 THE DECISION 


That woman, not only was not igno- 
rant of the legend (inasmuch as she had 
created it), but she also found it advis- 
able to keep it up by means of an epis- 
tolary intercourse with her pretended 
victim. The letters of Tarragnoz pro- 
cured for her two advantages: First, 
that of being able to exhibit them as 
convincing documents; next—as they 
found out later—that of drawing from 
them the materials for a romance which 
she had in her head to write. By the 
way, she might have had them printed 
without displacing a line, for they com- 
promised neither the past nor the pres- 
ent. In this correspondence with a 
Paristenne, who was rather handsome 
and passably intelligent, the exile found 
a welcome distraction in the desert of 





THE DECISION AY 


South-Oranis. To Walter, entirely 
Helvetian that he was, certain passages 
from the letters communicated to him 
by the lieutenant appeared to be an in- 
comparable treat. However, he did not 
restrain himself at times from making 
fun of the horribly ‘‘blue-stocking’’ 
style of the baroness. 

*“‘T must admit that is somewhat 
my fault,’’ responded Tarragnoz one 
day. ‘‘I like to incite her emula- 
tion by assuming the style of these 
women,”’ 

The sergeant, to tell the truth, was 
not often in a position to act as judge, 
for the very good reason that in the let- 
ters exchanged he himself played anim- . 
portant rdle. His chief presented him 3 
in these terms: 





42 THE DECISION 


I have under my orders, as non-commissioned 
officer, a superb young man who has the profile 
of a grand lord, the hands of a duchess and the 
education of a gentleman (which he does his best 
to conceal). You would be horribly in love with 
him at the end of a week were you to come here; 
happily you are not coming. As for me, I am 
fast becoming his friend. 

You are saying this is already too much, 
since there is no proof that I could safely trust 
him with my watch, though both came from 
Geneva. Was it a desire for pleasure and ecuri- 
-osity, as in my case, that brought Walter to the 
‘Legion? You would not believe me if I affirmed 
it. Why he came is one of the things we do 
not know. To ask a légionnaire his history is 
nearly as bad as asking a beautiful, well-pre- 
served woman her age—one is able to risk this 
comparison in the face of your twenty years. 





Five or six weeks later another letter 
showed but little change in the situa- 
tion: 


I am indeed nearly making an intimate of 
my friend, contrary to all good sense and in vio- 


THE DECISION 43 


lation of the rules of military etiquette. But 
if you had seen him fight yesterday! Naturally 
it was an insignificant battle, although we lost 
some of our men. Walter is a hero. So much 
the worse if he has more or less peccadillos upon 
his conscience! And then, as a conversational- 
ist, he fits me like a glove. 

In the evening, when all is quiet, he comes to 
my small zine house. By permission, given once 
for all times, he seats himself when we are alone, 
takes a cigarette and if he finds a month-old 
newspaper upon the table he seizes it with fever- 
ish eagerness. To note one detail, he neglects 
the first page and runs quickly to the ‘‘ worldly 
echoes’? and devours them without saying a 
word and with his forehead creased by a larga 
wrinkle. That he has lived more or less in Paris 
and frequented our society does not admit of a 
doubt; but that does not render the mystery 
more assuring. Sometimes his reading causes 
him to raise his shoulders or even to utter an 
impatient oath, for he poses a little as a philoso- 
pher disgusted with the world. Usually he pru- 
dently sticks to generalities, but sometimes he 
forgets himself. The other day, while greatly 
animated, he mumbled a continuous stream. 





AA THE DECISION 


‘‘Nothing to feed a horse with formerly, but 
now they crush the world with their automobile. 
Where the devil do they find the money! Poor 
fool! She has found the time to discover that 
her husband makes fun of her, but if the happy 
rivals are summoned as witnesses, how they will 
laugh. . . . The fashionable tenor! What a 
bluff! . . . Finally they are invited to Bon- 
nelles!’’ 

Walter certainly knows the persons whom we 
know. I have set traps for him, but he always 
escapes in time. Our politics interest him but 
little and our enthusiasm still less. He declares 
that the Swiss Republic puts ours to shame and 
that I appear to have an exaggerated patriotism. 
It is often past midnight when he leaves my 
officer’s zine for his subaltern’s canvas. One 
single subject seems to be interdicted in his con- 
versation: he never speaks of women, which 
leads to the belief that he regrets one in particu- 
lar. And yet I doubt it. ‘‘Are you a Puritan 
after the example of our doctor?’’ I asked him. 
‘Oh, you know everyone is a little Puritan in 
Geneva,’’ he replied. 

There, dear baroness, is the unlooked-for 
social affair. I do not speak of my military sur- 





THE DECISION 45 


prises, of the crack of the guns causing a hasty 
rising, of the suspicious cavaliers appearing 
upon the crests whom it is necessary to scru- 
tinize closely, of the tardy convoy which makes 
doubtful the supply of bread for the following 
day and risks condemning us to dry mutton. 
Truly, I am greatly amused, but what would 
become of me without that other cavalier dou- 
teux, my friend Walter? 





Already, however, Tarragnoz knew 
the suffering of jealousy in his friend- 
ship, for the sergeant had another 
friend in the person of Doctor Tucheim. 
Between these two the meetings. were 
much jess frequent, but more intimate. 
Probably they were more confidential. 
To Walter, according to all the evi- 
dence, the ‘‘parson’’ was the friend of 
bad days. When the company remained 
for some weeks without making an ex- 
pedition and without the firing of a 


“46 THE DECISION 





gun, the under-officer became sad and 
used to have a troubled and pathetic ex- 
pression. At evening, instead of seek- 
ing the company of his chief, he wan- 
dered like a soul in pain around the 
camp. Then by chance Tucheim would 
find him there and take him by the arm 
and lead him to his quarters adjoining 
the infirmary, and no one knows of what 
they talked during the next hour. Al- 
though this slyness displeased Tarrag- 
noz, neither Tucheim nor Walter made 
allusion to their mysterious talks, from 
which Walter invariably came calmer 
and more disposed to talkativeness with 
his lieutenant. For this, Tarragnoz was 
indirectly under obligation to the doc- 
tor. But the moment came when he was 
obliged to request the doctor’s profes- 


THE DECISION 47 





sional assistance. One morning he was 
taken with unbearable hepatic pains. 

“*Is this the first time?’’ asked Tu- 
cheim, who was called in the middle of 
the night. 

‘*Tt is the first time for many years.”’ 

‘‘Hum! Ain-Sefra is but little recom- 
mended for afflictions of that kind. The 
only thing which will relieve you is an 
injection of morphine. Hold your 
arm.”’ 

Some days later, the trouble having 
disappeared, Tarragnoz said to Tu- 
cheim: ‘‘If a crisis returns when you 
are visiting an advanced post fifty kilo- 
metres away, I am going to amuse my- 
self. In my cantine I have found a syr- 
inge formerly used by someone. Do 
me the favor to leave me a little mor- 


48 THE DECISION 


phine and if necessary I shall be able 
to pull myself out of the trouble alone.’’ 

Tucheim reflected, scratched his head 
and then made this reservation: ‘*‘You 
must give me a promise, lieutenant, 
that Walter never knows you possess 
that infernal drug.”’ 

‘Why ?”’ 

‘Because he will steal it from you. 
He has a syringe himself. One’ should 
always be on guard against a morphin- 
omac, even after a pretended cure.”’ — 

‘*You believe, then, that your friend 
is capable of larceny ?”’ 

‘*T'o steal money, no. To steal mor- 
phine—perhaps. I have your promise, 
have I not?’’ 





IV. 
THE COUP DE GRACE 


The writer of these pages (one 
should be grateful to him for his mod- 
esty) is not attempting to follow in the 
footsteps of Homer, who a@ propos of 
a simple adventure of a wife, a husband 
and a lover found material for the 
Iliad. The telegraph, with or without 
wires in these later days, has composed. 
bulky volumes in bad but truthful prose 
upon the exploits of the Foreign Legion 
without forgetting the other cohorts 
who battled at its side. In every lan- 
guage of the world the papers have re- 

A9 


50 THE DECISION 





counted the gallantry of the survivors 
and honored the mdnes of those who 
fell. What were the battles upon the 
plains of Troy compared with these 
endless marches in the mountains, with 
the encounters where the cannon thun- 
dered, where the balls whistled, where 
death came from far away, invisible, 
inevitable, even for the combatant who 
possessed the buckler of Achilles! This 
recital does not pretend to be and there 
is no occasion for its being a glorifica- 
tion of the heroes whom everyone ad- 
mires. 

Besides, at the time when the real 
war with Morocco commenced, Tarrag- 
noz and Tucheim were no longer in 
South-Oranis. Sergeant Walter is yet 
there, even as the god-like Achilles is 


THE DECISION 51 





yet upon the sandy shores of Scaman- 
dre, under the tall hillock of sand which 
the traveller loves to contemplate. Of 
the poor cavalier douteux, like so many 
other men, what remains of him? Not 
even a knoll of grass, a luxury unknown 
in the desert. 

Let no one imagine, however, that the 
personages in this history led peaceful 
existences. They had already known 
long expeditions in ‘‘the country of 
thirst’’ under a sky of fire, ambuscades 
in the mountains favorably located for 
treachery, the escorts of the convoys 
watched for by a famished tribe, the 
predatory incursions of flocks defended 
with a furious hatred. On more than 
one occasion the ‘‘parson’’ sent off the 
heavy envelopes bearing upon the ad- 


52 THE DECISION 





dress names that no one had ever heard 
among the men of the detachment. 

One day a little before noon Captain 
Mataillet, Lieutenant Tarragnoz and 
Sergeant Walter were presently talk- 
ing upon the top of a hill from which 
the captain was searching the horizon 
with his field-glasses. It was the day 
for the arrival of the mail, fresh flour, 
juicy preserves and new cartridges. 
Doctor Tucheim, starting the evening 
before to visit a distant post had said, 
‘‘If I can find some tobacco here to- 
morrow on my return, I sha’n’t care 
about the other things.” 

A cloud of dust arose in the distance. 
The mouth of Captain Mataillet formed 
a grimace beneath the field-glasses. 

‘‘A trooper galloping,’”’ said he. 


THE DECISION 53 


‘*Surely there is something doing. Lieu- 
tenant, get a section ready. If that fel- 
low is hurrying so much just to bring 
me some vegetables I shall, indeed, be 
surprised.’’ 

There was, in fact, something doing. 
Ten kilometres off the convoy had been 
attacked, and although the small escort 
had held firm, the chief desired rein- 
forcements. Twenty men, ten of whom 
were mounted, started at once under 
the charge of Tarragnoz and Walter. 
They went at a race-horse speed. At 
each kilometre the horsemen gave up 
their mounts to the foot soldiers. One 
hour sufficed to bring the little group 
to the place of the engagement. 

Previously taught by the Spaht, Tar- 
ragnoz now understood the situation. 





54 THE DECISION 


The ambuscade, located a little distance 
from the post, had succeeded in deceiv- 
ing the chief of the convoy into the be- 
lief that he had passed the dangerous 
zone. Before daylight the marauders 
had leaped over the very uncertain line 
of the frontier at a point a short dis- 
tance away, and had been able to hide 
themselves behind the rocks upon the 
west slope of the little waterless valley. 
All at once they bounded out like cats, 
formed themselves into two groups, and 
their firing burst out in front and in 
the rear of the column. Fortunately, 
our friends in Berlin had never had 
time to arm these marauders in Euro- 
pean fashion, so they were unable to 
preserve their natural shelter and open 
fire at a distance. Our men very quick- 





THE DECISION 55 





ly formed into a square and decimated 
the enemy by a rapid fire, while the 
long guns of the Moroccans did but lit- 
tle damage; the affair would have ended 
badly, however, had it not been for the 
self-sacrifice of the mounted trooper 
and the good fortune which saved both 
him and his horse from being shot. 
Tarragnoz, with perfect coolness, 
thought best to occupy the heights 
which the enemy had just abandoned 
and which, besides its advantageous po- 
sition, cut off the retreat of their assail- 
ants. When the carbines commenced to 
speak behind them, the Moroccans un- 
derstood the danger and seeing that 
they were confronted with only a few 
men sought bravely to force a passage; 
but they had never had occasion to learn 


566 THE DECISION 


what hardened men, properly armed, 
could accomplish. Soon the slope was 
strewn with their corpses. 

Walter, standing near the officers, 
seemed to be greatly amused. He 
fired like an amateur, leisurely shoul- 
dering his gun and announcing the 
shots, 

‘“ake the one, lieutenant, who is pre- 
paring to jump the crevice; two to one 
you will bring him down.”’ 

The man fell; then it was another’s 
turn. 

‘*No, that one is too easy,’’ said Wal- 
ter, who, except on rare occasions, let 
fly at once. 

‘‘My compliments,’’ said Tarragnoz 
to him, ‘‘you shoot like a Swiss.”’ | 

‘Is it not so, lieutenant? Like a 





THE DECISION 57 


Swiss, like William ‘Tell. Ah! the 
Swine!”’ 

He carried his hand to his right side, 
his face contracted by a sharp pain. He 
leaned upon his gun to save himself 
from falling. His chief asked him, 
**Are you seriously hurt ?’’ 

*‘T do not think so. There is noth- 
ing broken. I can move my leg.’’ 

‘“‘Then we must not remain here 
where we are too much exposed.’’ But 
already the assailants had seen them. 

Shouting their cries of joy, which re- 
sembled the roar of a beast, the maraud- 
ers hurled themselves in the direction 
of the wounded man. Still standing, 
Walter fired a last shot. A Moroccan | 
fell, but five or six others were ap- 
proaching. 





568 THE DECISION 


‘*Lieutenant,’’ groaned Walter, ‘‘ex- 
cuse me, I am too ill to hold my gun.”’ 
_ “Tt is no longer a gun that is needed, 
my brave fellow. But let us try to gain 
that shelter where I can defend you 
better.’ 

Seeing that the wounded man walked 
with pain, Tarragnoz took him in 
his arms. Soon escaping from the 
whizzing bullets, they reached a pro- 
jecting rock. In one hand the officer 
held his own revolver and in the other 
that of the sergeant. |When the demons 
were within ten paces he opened fire. 

‘“‘Save your last two balls for our- 
selves,’’ cried Walter to him. 

“‘No need of that yet; without being 
a Swiss, my aim is passable, besides 
here are our men.’’ 





THE DECISION 59 


At this moment, the Moroccans, dis- 
concerted by the effect of our arms, 
thought only of saving themselves and 
this they were able to do, thanks to the 
diversion caused by the wounding of 
the sergeant. Supported by two com- 
rades Walter was able to reach the con- 
voy. Upon the back of a mule they 
placed the wounded man, whose pains 
were terrible. 

**You do not bleed, it will amount to 
nothing,’’ they said to him. 

**T would like it better if I bled like 
a calf,’’ responded he, with his teeth 
tightly shut, ‘‘and I shall have two 
hours of it before getting to camp.”’ 

Soon they were obliged to take him 
down from the mule, as the shaking 
caused him such frightful torture. He 





‘60 THE DECISION 


remained lying upon the ground guard- 
ed by some of the men. 

‘*T will return as soon as possible 
with a stretcher,’’ said his lieutenant, 
‘fand I hope the doctor will have re- 
turned from his inspection.’’ 

Tarragnoz returned with the stretch- 
er, but without the doctor, to whom 
he had dispatched a messenger to hasten 
his return. 

The wounded man during the jour- 
ney could not remain quiet. His right. 
leg, bent back, kept beating the air like 
a wing, sometimes falling upon the 
other thigh, sometimes carried outside 
by a nearly continuous rotary move- 
ment. He was in the infirmary three 
hours before the doctor arrived. After 
the examination and first dressing of 





THE DECISION 61 


the wound, Tucheim made his report 
to his chief. 

‘*Wound on the right side of the ab- 
domen. The projectile after having 
crossed the psoas muscle was deviated 
upon the tliac bone. The severe pain 
makes an investigation extremely diffi- 
cult. Unfortunately, five or six hours 
passed before the first aid was given to 
him. It is reasonable to expect an in- 
fection of the wound to the trawmatic 
psottis with intense fever——’’ 

“To the devil with your Hebrew 
words,’’ interrupted Mataillet. ‘‘In 
plain language, you mean that the poor 
fellow has a bullet in his belly. Are 
you going to extract it?”’ 

The doctor turned his eyes and re- 
sponded, ‘‘Not immediately.”’ 





62 THE DECISION 


‘*What? It is outrageous to leave 
him so, if you are thinking of doing it,”’ 
said the captain. 

‘*T do it for the reason that we are in 
the middle of the desert, without a hos- 
pital, without ice and with one hundred 
and thirteen degrees of heat in the 
shade. How do you think I can pre- 
vent the infection of the wound and 
struggle with the fever?’’ 

‘‘That’s just my luck! The best ser- 
geant of my company! An! The dirty 
scoundrels! Say, lieutenant, I hope 
they killed a bunch of them.’’ 

‘Poor Walter alone killed a num- 
ber,’’ affirmed Tarragnoz. ‘‘This even- 
ing we shall have a correct account.”’ 

He forgot to speak of the work which 
he had himself accomplished in pre- 





THE DECISION 63 


venting the enemy from beheading his 
friend, and he asked himself the ques- 
tion, ‘‘Was it really a service that I 
rendered him ?’’ 

Tucheim regained the infirmary ac- 
companied by the lieutenant. At the 
door he requested the latter not to en- 
ter. 

‘‘T would like to talk five minutes 
with Walter. ‘To-morrow probably it 
will be difficult.” 

Upon leaving the wounded man he 
went to the zinc house of Tarragnoz. 

‘*Walter requested me to inform his 
family of the engagement of this morn- 
ing in order that they may know that he 
fell while doing his duty. Any notes 
that you can furnish will be useful.’’ 

‘*You shall have them,”’ promised the 





64 THE DECISION 


lieutenant, ‘‘and you can write to his 
family that he fell like a hero. But I 
fear it is now that he will have need of 
all his heroism. From here we can hear 
his cries. It is frightful.’’ 

The sick and wounded men lying in 
the infirmary were unable to secure a 
moment’s sleep during the night. In 
the morning Tucheim requested that 
they furnish him with a special tent 
to which'he could carry the wounded 
sergeant. 

“That is useless, bring him to my 
house,’’ commanded the lieutenant. 

The doctor objected. ‘‘You don’t 
know what awaits you. The unfortun- 
ate man will have, until death relieves 
him, terrible tortures which may con- 
tinue many days.”’ 





THE DECISION 65 


‘‘All the more reason. In my 
house he will be better off than with 
a simple canvas between him and the 
sun.”’ 

A half hour later Walter was lying in 
the clean bed of Tarragnoz. At this 
moment of the recital, the most realistie¢ 
writer would have no need of exagger- 
ating the description of the horrible 
drama, but the narrator is not ashamed 
to avow that he lacks the courage. As 
for Tarragnoz, the torture endured for 
three days and nights, greatly exceeded 
that which he was prepared to suffer. 
In a dismal crescendo the complaints 
became cries, then howlings of pain to 
such a degree that within the inclosure 
of the camp not a man was able to close 
an eye. 





66 THE DECISION 





Tarragnoz had nothing before his 
eyes now, except an unfortunate mon- 
ster disfigured by torture. It was with 
difficulty that he realized that this 
strange object was his friend Walter. 
The face, which had become black and 
blue, made him think of the space re- 
served upon the canvas by a painter 
who has indicated only by dark lines the 
face of his model. Under their dis- 
tended arches no trace of the eyelids 
remained, yet the eyes burned with a 
sinister lustre, contracting themselves 
and seeming about to disappear in the 
depths of their orbits. This gave one 
the impression of the two lights on the — 
rear of a train entering a tunnel, soon 
to be absorbed in the darkness. 


THE DECISION 67 


The twisted arms convulsively beat 
the air, the hands contracted like the 
fangs of an animal, and without ceas- 
ing and with the accurate regularity of 
a balanced machine, the folded leg re- 
sembling the pinion of an enormous 
bird, described that movement of rota- 
tion, which, more than anything else, 
drove Tarragnoz half crazy. 

Injections of morphine, given often 
during the twenty-four hours, allevi- 
ated in some degree the unfortunate 
man’s suffering, but the quieting effect 
did not last. Then the cries became 
hoarse like the barks of a dog that sees 
its game, and but one word of supplica- 
tion could be distinguished. 

‘*Morphine! Morphine!’’ 

Unable to contain himself longer, 





68 THE DECISION 


Tarragnoz ran to the doctor’s house. 

‘Hor the love of Heaven, come to 
him and make a puncture.’’ 

“‘Not yet, it is but a half hour since 
the last one.”’ 

On the morning of the third day, the 
lieutenant insisted, ‘‘ What if it is only 
a half hour since the last one? (What 
does that matter ?’’ 

“Lieutenant, I do net want to kill 
him.”’ 

**My God, why not?’’ 

‘Because human life does not belong 
to us.’’ 

‘“You admit, however, that there is 
no hope.’’ 

“Not the least.’’ 

‘‘And you are going to allow him to 
suffer ?’’ 





THE DECISION 69 


“‘Non Occides! Thou shalt not kill! 
You know what is commanded.”’’ 

‘‘Your religion is without bowels of 
compassion.”’ 

‘**Do not accuse my religion. [ama 
doctor. The most atheistic of us would 
refuse to do what you ask.”’ 

Returning to the wounded man, Tar- 
ragnoz, from what followed, might well 
have believed that his conversation with 
Tucheim had been heard. 

‘*My—lieutenant, kill me,—please 
kill me,—kill me!’’ 

Then this appeal became continuous, 
sometimes murmured like a prayer, 
sometimes hurled with imprecations, 
and during that day Tarragnoz heard 
nothing else. To his astonishment Wal- 
ter no longer asked for morphine. 





70 THE DECISION 





‘*Lieutenant,—you have a revolver, 
—kill me,—please kill me,—kill me, 
you coward,—how I would like to see 
you in my place!’’ 

For Tarragnoz this ordeal, supported 
during the days of agony and the long 
nights of insomnia, was dangerous, for 
the officer admitted no other guide than 
reason in the maze of human vicissi- 
tudes. He interrogated his conscience. 
He pictured to himself Walter con- 
demned to death and himself command- 
ant of the platoon of execution. Would 
it not be his duty to give the order to 
fire? And when the condemned man 
would be brought to earth a corporal 
would approach and give him the coup 
de grace. All that would be legitimate. 
Would the coup de grace demanded. by 


THE DECISION 71 


this suffering and dying man be less 
legitimate? The conscience of Tarrag- 
noz—at least he so believed—told him 
that during all his future life he would 
never again have the opportunity to ac- 
complish such a deed of mercy. And 
before him, before them, another night 
approached with the visions of a fright- 
ful hell. 

His resolution was not fully formed, 
but he wished to prepare himself 
for whatever might happen. In any 
event it was not a question of a re- 
volver. 

‘“* After all, I am not obliged to do 
anything,’’ thought he. 

Crafty as a malefactor, he entered 
the house of Tucheim. 

“*Doctor, I do not feel well.’’ 





72 THE DECISION 


‘*My poor lieutenant, what is the mat- 
ter? Where do you suffer?’’ 

‘*In the liver. I feel an attack com- 
ing on and I have no morphine to re- 
lieve me of the colic. Here is my flask, 
will you refill it?’’ 

‘‘T am short myself,’’ responded the 
doctor, ‘‘poor Walter has consumed so 
much, but I will prepare some. Leave 
your flask, you shall have it in an 
hour.”’ ! 

That night Tarragnoz alone watched 
with his sergeant. When his watch 
marked the hour of midnight, the 
wounded man still erying, ‘‘Kill me! 
kill me! What wrong have I done that 
you let me suffer?’’ Tarragnoz ap- 
proached the bed. ‘‘Do you really wish 
it, do you really want to die?”’ 





THE DECISION 73 


‘‘Only lend me your revolver.’’ 

‘‘No, [have morphine. You will fall 
asleep after three injections, stroke by, 
stroke.”’ 

‘‘Thanks, my lieutenant. ‘Ah! It is 
not too soon—give me your hand.’’ 

The trembling fingers rested a second 
in the convulsed claws of Walter. Then 
Tarragnoz filled the syringe and pushed 
the needle. He gave one injection, then 
a second, then a third; after which he 
put everything back in order as if he 
had been a vulgar assassin. Already 
feeling that he would not have the cour- 
age to do the thing over again, he 
awaited the end of the drama, whose 
dénouement he had brought about. The 
cries of pain continued louder than 
before, but he had heard that a too 





74 THE DECISION 





strong dose does not instantly take ef- 
fect. 

“‘More!”’ cried Walter, ‘‘I feel that 
coming, but not quickly enough—more 
—more, lieutenant.’’ 

Paul at once felt his reason, usually 
so affirmative, stealing away in the face 
of an accomplished fact. Already he 
was on the point of running to the house 
of the ‘‘parson’’ and confessing what 
he had done. All at once the eries be- 
came less frequent, less heart-rending, 
and after so many days and so many 
nights of uproar, the effect was like a 
profound silence. The man who had 
caused this silence bowed his head, not 
daring to turn toward the bed where 
something still remained. The grip- 
ping of two hands upon the shoulders 


THE DECISION 75 


made him start; he looked and shud- 
dered. Walter was there, his body half 
out of the bed coverings. He was there 
with his face disfigured by the gaping 
holes of the eyes already dead. Once 
seen, this frightful mask could never 
be forgotten. The mouth opened with 
a movement which did not resemble 
that of a mouth which speaks. Yet, 
however, these words came out, “‘If you 
knew.”’ 

That which Tarragnoz ought to know 
will never be known, either to him or to 
any other person. The weight which he 
supported became heavier and the em- 
brace tighter. Then the fearless soldier 
for the first time knew what terror was. . 
He wanted to fly but in his movement 
he carried with him the body of Wal- 





76 THE DECISION 


ter, which rolled upon the ground and 
did not move. The hour of deliverance 
had come. 

Paul stooped, but was obliged to put 
forth desperate efforts in order to place 
upon the funeral bed the man whom he 
had carried like a child some days be- 
fore, while the Moroccans’ balls whis- 
tled in their ears. 

Those who have held in their arms a 
corpse know how heavy. death makes 
the body. 





Vi 
“TF YOU KNEW” 


The grand problem of final immobil- 
ity which Tarragnoz contemplated, 
breathless from the physical effort, but 
still more from the other cause, held 
nothing new for him. It had always 
been to him a problem of two unknown 
factors. In which region hovered at 
this moment (he believed in its exist- 
ence) the released soul? Still more, 
what thought that soul of him who had 
wrought the deliverance? Did it know 
his mind and reproach him for having © 
obeyed? Was it happy gratitude, or 
was it an implacable curse, which in the 

77 


78 THE DECISION 


future would follow the complaisant 
perpetrator of an act implored in the 
agony of tortures ? 

The single fact of the uncertainty 
caused him poignant surprise. He had 
felt so sure of the approbation of his 
conscience. And already the counsellor, 
which a little earlier had so proudly 
pretended to be infallible, shuffled and 
beat about like a witness without con- 
viction implicated in a bad affair. Tar- 
ragnoz contemplated his work—for 
whether lawful or forbidden it was his 
work. He thought: 

‘‘Would you not be able to make a 
sign ?”’ 

Alas! The spectacle before him, if 
that was the sign requested, was not re- 
assuring. F'rom out of the eyes of the 





THE DECISION 79 


dead man came a look (if one could 
call it a look) full of anything save a 
benediction. Tarragnoz desired to close 
them, but the task was impossible. One 
would have said that the eyelids no 
longer existed. Becoming cowardly, he 
hastened to cover the face of Walter. 
Then he ealled his orderly and sent 
him to the doctor’s house, but the lat- 
ter at the same moment opened the 
door. 

‘*His cries stopped,”’ said the doctor, 
‘fand I indeed thought the end had 
come, but I did not anticipate that it 
would be so soon. How did he pass 
away?’ 

‘‘His complaints diminished, then — 
ceased altogether, and all at once he left 
his bed to come to me, commencing a 





80 THE DECISION 


phrase, ‘If you knew—’ but he was 
not able to finish it; he fell lifeless and 
I replaced him upon the bed.”’ 

The doctor examined the body while 
Tarragnoz, covered with a cold per- 
spiration, dreaded the question which 
would follow; but he was soon reas- 
sured. 

‘‘T have never seen a stranger case, 
murmured the doctor, speaking to him- 
self. ‘‘Ah, those who do not want to 
believe in auto-suggestion—in the psy- 
chological power !”’ 

At another time Tarragnoz would 
have made fun of this; one may guess 
whether he had that desire now. 

‘‘Three o’clock in the morning,”’ said 
the doctor, looking at his watch, ‘‘I will 
write out the facts and notify the cap- 





97 


THE DECISION 81 


tain. Poor Walter will not be able to 
remain with us long.’’ 

Tucheim bowed his head and said the 
prayer which he always offered in such 
eases. Then he quickly disappeared, 
leaving the lieutenant relieved by this 
absence of suspicion. From this time 
forward the terrible secret between him- 
self and the dead was safe. Tarragnoz 
breathed still more freely when the 
poor Swiss, long before the sun had 
reached the meridian, was laid to rest 
in the sand. When the company had 
returned to camp after its funeral duty 
he fell upon his bed overcome with 
fatigue. He was not, however, able to 
sleep. Whenever he closed his eyes he 
immediately saw Walter in front of 
him, and the bed of torture where Wal- 





‘82 THE DECISION 


ter accompanied the going and coming 
of his leg with the distracting rhythm 
of his plaints. 

At sunset Paul said to himself—and 
dozens of men around him thought it— 
‘* At last we shall be able to sleep.’’ In 
fact, a heavy sleep deadened him until 
three o’clock, when suddenly he imag- 
ined that he felt two hands upon his 
shoulders and heard a hoarse voice 
which cried: 

“Tf you knew!” 

Instantly awake from his nightmare, 
he endeavored to convince himself that 
following the emotions of the preceding 
night the appearance of the phantom 
was nothing astonishing; but the needed 
sleep would not return and at three 
o’clock on the following night, and every 





THE DECISION 83 


night thereafter, the phantom returned. 
One would indeed think that, for a man 
of such a temperament, the impression 
caused by these regular visits could not 
be a question of physical terror; but 
precisely because the imagination of the 
soldier inured to war was not stirred, 
his judgment worked all the better. 
This trouble persisting after the accom- 
plished act made him see and realize 
its enormity. ‘‘If,’’ thought he, ‘‘I 
had in my right mind destroyed the 
Museum of the Louvre, I should never 
again know repose. But what are the 
treasures of all the civilized capitals 
by the side of this chef-d’oeuvre impos- 
sible to restore—the human life ?’’ 
Some days later, the obsession not 
having disappeared, he remembered the 





[84 THE DECISION 


| words of Tucheim spoken to himself 
while examining the body. ‘‘He was 
deceived that day. I have good reason 
to believe that Walter did not die of 
auto-suggestion, but he doubtless ap- 
pears to me because I suggest to myself 
the idea of his appearance at a fixed 
hour.”’ 

Paul soon arrived at the point of ask- 
ing himself if the doctor, adept in the 
supernatural, would be able to relieve 
him of the chronic nightmare; but to 
gain this help it would be necessary to 
make a confession which was beyond 
his power. However, with the regular- 
ity of a clock, the apparition showed 
itself. Each night at three o’clock he 
started up in an anguished embrace. 
Then he awakened and was unable to 





THE DECISION 85 


sleep again. Little by little his health 
became endangered, his forces were no 
longer sufficiently repaired by sleep. 
His judgment lost its sway and, ceas- 
ing to find an explanation of the phe- 
nomena, he frankly accepted the hy- 
pothesis of the classical phantom such 
as Shakespeare showed haunting the 
walls of Elsinore. This idea, followed 
by the conviction that he would be thus 
haunted all his life, threw him into a 
gloomy despair, and he naturally ar- 
rived at the first degree of folly—the 
hatred of the phantom. 

The réles having changed, it was no 
longer Walter who could claim that he 
was the victim. Walter, for whom Tar- 
ragnoz had risked his life, was an in- 
grate, devoid of all sense of justice. 





86 THE DECISION 


Had he not during the long hours 
begged his chief to kill him—his chief 
who had welcomed him to his hut, eared 
for him and watched over him like a 
brother? And certainly, if ever a sery- 
ice demanded courage, that was indeed 
the one. Of what could Walter com- 
plain? He declared that he had ob- 
tained from many of his comrades their 
promise to give him the coup de grace 
upon the battlefield if, fatally wounded, 
he was in danger of falling into the 
hands of the Moroccans. With all their 
savagery, the Moroccans could never 
invent for him such cruel and long-con- 
tinued torture. But in this unfortunate 
disagreement of two old friends one 
aggravating fact was certain, Tarrag- 
noz had not the advantage of being able 





THE DECISION 87 


to close his door to Walter. Besides, 
the phantom added malice and indis- 
cretion to his work; to confuse him, the 
unhappy Paul fixed his reveille at half 
past two in order to have his eyes wide 
open at the fated moment, but it was in 
vain; the phantom changed its habits 
and came at two, or waited until Paul 
was again asleep. 

‘¢Lieutenant,’’ said Tucheim to him 
one day, ‘‘you ought to request a sick 
leave, and pardon me for adding that, 
if you do not ask for one, I believe my 
conscience will oblige me to give the 





order.”’ 

‘‘T am not sick,’’ quickly responded 
the officer. 

‘“*You soon will be, I have noticed 
you; believe me, you should go away 


88 THE DECISION 





while you are able to travel on horse- 
back. If you are taken down you know 
we shall not be able to offer you a sleep- 
ing car.”’ 

‘*What do you think is the matter 
with me?”’ 

“Cerebral hypertension. Do you 
sleep well?’’ 

Paul, dreading the outcome of the in- 
terrogatory if he answered truthfully, 
told a lie to the doctor—for the second 
time. 

‘*T sleep wonderfully well, but I have 
no appetite.” 

‘*Are there any indications of liver 
trouble? You still have the morphine, 
_ have you not?”’ 

‘‘Certainly, certainly,’’ affirmed 
Paul; he felt himself blushing. | 


THE DECISION 89 


‘*You must take a furlough. The 
climate of South-Oranis is against 
you. You must change places and 
see the world. The painful end of 
the poor sergeant has affected your 
nerves and that is not surprising. You 
were in the first row at the per- 
formance.”’ 

‘*Has anyone discovered his family ?’’ 
demanded the officer to change the sub- 
ject. 

‘*Yes, I have corresponded with her, 
but without entering into the details of 
his last moments.’’ | 

‘“‘T will make my official request for 
a leave of absence,’’ declared Paul 
brusquely. : 

His superior officer did not show him 
the medical report joined to his de- 





90 THE DECISION 


mand, where it mentioned a ‘fixed 
idea,’” which was likely to lead to a 
grave mental derangement. When the 
day of his departure arrived the adieux 
of Tucheim to his leutenant were al- 
most pathetic. : 

‘“We may never meet again, but no 
matter what happens do not forget the 
hours we have passed together here in 
this corner of the desert.”’ 

“That will not be likely,’’ replied 
Tarragnoz. 

“‘ And if you ever have need of me for 
any service whatever—you know they 
call me the ‘Parson,’ and perhaps you 
even realize that I somewhat deserve 
that surname.”’ 

Thus, the doctor’s speech, begun with 
serious emotion, ended in pleasantry. 





THE DECISION 91 


At least no one could doubt his good 
will, and it was that which grimly de- 
cided Tarragnoz never willingly to see 
again Rudolph Tucheim or Algeria. 





VI 
COUNTESS DE LA GUERNERIE 


The spectre forgot to visit Paul dur- 
ing the first night of the journey and 
during those which followed. The ef- 
fect of this moral deliverance upon his 
physical condition did not fail to mani- 
fest itself. It was a man almost cheer- 
ful and in good condition who set his 
feet in the capital toward the middle 
of springtime, when Paris is the most 
charming place here below. 

Tarragnoz believed himself cured of 
his disgust for civilization after so long 
a sojourn in a savage country. Not 
having entered a theatre during all the 

92 


THE DECISION 93 





preceding season, the representations of 
domestic infidelity appeared to him 
nearly new. He had no desire to yawn 
at the Hippodrome, of which he had 
formerly said, ‘‘It is the promenade of 
the society women, just as the Folies- 
Bergére is the promenade of the 
others.”’ 

The nymphs of the “Salon de Pein- 
ture’’ continued to sponge themselves 
in the nickeled tubs, instead of hiding 
their bath, as in the time of his father, 
in a mysterious corner of the crystal- 
line lake; but this abuse of the artistic 
civilization caused him to laugh rather 
than to become indignant. He resolved: 
to laugh at everything ridiculous, al-" 
though there was nothing in fact to 
make one weep. 


94 THE DECISION 


Unable, as might be expected, to en- 
dure life at a hotel, Tarragnoz took an 
apartment which especially attracted 
him by the comfortable appearance of 
the bedroom. He had no intention of 
giving receptions. 

‘* At last,’’ said he, in settling himself 
between the sheets, ‘‘I am going to 
sleep in a real bed—and in my bed.”’ 

His sleep was delicious until three 
o’clock. Then the phantom which he 
believed he had left at the frontiers of 
Morocco, appeared, placed its crooked 
hands upon hin, stared at him with its 
monster-like eyes and barked at him the 
cabalistic words, “‘If you knew!’’ 

Why, unless by detestable malice, had 
the phantom chosen this moment for its 
return? Paul forgot, perhaps, in an- 





THE DECISION 95 


grily asking himself this question, the 
flask of morphine which, on finding it 
the evening before at the bottom of his 
traveling bag, he had precipitately 
thrown into the street. One thought 
and only one came to his mind. The 
cure which he had believed to be com- 
plete was a failure, and after this dis- 
appointment he was without hope. The 
phantom was fastened to him for the 
rest of his life; his future would be 
without pleasure and without charm. 
At times the apparition seemed to ex- 
perience some lassitude, but that was 
but little less insupportable. Tarrag- 
noz never went to bed without asking 
himself, ‘‘ Will he come ?’’ 

Paul was able, however, to adopt cer- 
tain precautions against the obsession 





96 THE DECISION 





more conveniently in Paris than in the 
desert. He. arranged to be awakened 
at the hour when the phantom was ex- 
pected. Walter in such cases remained 
invisible, but Paul, in spite of himself, 
. watched for its coming, believing that 
he would hear its light rap at the door 
and its discreetly murmured excuse, 
‘‘Ah, pardon me, you have company, 
I will return!’’ 

However, all of his comrades envied 
his good fortune. At the expiration of 
his furlough and at the moment when 
he was wondering how to escape re- 
turning to Algeria, an old friend of his 
father, newly promoted to a general- 
ship, selected him for his aide de camp. 
The general in question, detached from 
the staff, was a member of a com- 


THE DECISION 97 





mittee of officers acting in Paris, so 
that Tarragnoz was able not only to 
enjoy his residence there but to have 
considerable liberty. Finally, by vir- 
tue of his third galloon, he became one 
of the youngest captains in the army. 
All this time when the wind of pros- 
perity filled his sails, his moral cure 
seemed infallible, at least his sufferings 
were greatly ameliorated. The phan- 
tom, as if occupied elsewhere, rarely 
visited him. Paul felt a decrease in 
that which Tucheim called his ‘‘cerebral 
hypertension,’’ but as a natural sequel 
to the enfeeblement of certain images, 
the act committed. a year previous 
seemed no longer the deed of a libera-_- 
tor, even in the eyes of the one who had 
performed it.“ The excuse itself dim- 


98 THE DECISION 





inished and Paul simply became in the 
light of his own reason a man circulat- 
ing in Paris with a murder upon his 
conscience. 

For a person fleeing from a monoton- 
ous existence, such a situation would 
have the merit of being anything but 
commonplace, but Paul was not the sort 
of a man to shut his eyes in the face of 
trouble, and he was barred by tempera- 
ment from all confidences. He soon be- 
came morose and gloomy to the point 
of profound melancholy. After a year 
of this régime his affection of the liver 
reappeared, and the attack this time 
was severe. The doctor (it was not Tu- 
cheim) ordered him to Vichy. Paul 
begged for mercy. 

‘*Could you not order something else ? 


THE DECISION 99 


Bear in mind that this will be my third 
cure at Vichy, and I despise the place. 
I shall find there all the colonial army 
which I wish to avoid, and still worse, I 
shall meet the entire civil colony. Fin- 
ally, dying of ennut, I shall gamble, I 
shall amuse myself, I shall live high and 
get to bed at two o’clock in the morn- 
ing. Vichy offers to a sick person, I 
have never known why, a complete col- 
lection of all the pleasures which ruin 
the health of a vigorous man.”’ 

*‘Then, since you are a model of vir- 
tue, I offer you the model of serious wa- 
ters—Carlsbad. It is a place where the 
municipal regulations prohibit the vis- 
itor from recklessly, or otherwise,. 
amusing himself, eating what is injur- 
ious, going to bed later than nine 





10 THE DECISION 





o’clock, or rising later than six, when 
the orchestra lets loose with noise suffi- 
cient to wake the dead.’’ 

‘Why have the other doctors never 
mentioned Carlsbad ?’’ 

‘‘Where is your patriotism? Be- 
sides, the Parisians would not be able 
to remain there a week. Think of it! 
No pretty women, no roulette, no all- 
night restaurants, no cafés! Do you 
speak German ?’’ 

‘‘No, but I shall go there all the 
same.”’ 

Four or five days later Paul arrived 
at Carlsbad, instead of at Vichy, where 
everyone went, and the latter fact 
caused him the first satisfaction; be- 
sides, he felt sure of not knowing any- 
one there and of being able to keep to 


THE DECISION 101 


himself and live at his ease, not pre- 
tending through politeness to be enter- 
tained—one of the odious tortures of 
civilization. 

At the Hotel Savoy, which in Carls- 
bad represents the modern corruption 
in the midst of the prevailing auster- 
ity, they gave him sugary and very good 
food, and they extinguished but few of 
the lights before eleven o’clock. Fur- 
thermore, contrary to the predictions 
of his doctor, two Paris ladies, recog- 
nized as such at sight, dined at a nearby 
table. They were elegant, each one ac- 
cording to her age, and their beauty 
was so similar that the family relation 
could be easily guessed. Time had’ 
spared the face and figure of the 
mother, limiting itself to covering her 





102 THE DECISION 





hair with a bed of snow. No one would 
believe her to be over fifty. By con- 
trast, her daughter, not less beautiful 
but of a more serious physiognomy, 
seemed to have reached her thirtieth 
year. It was she, judging by her Kurge- 
maesse menu, who came to take the 
Carlsbad cure. Paul Tarragnoz was a 
fine observer and took all these notes 
in ten minutes. 

With an equally sure glance, he real- 
ized that his neighbors were not the sort 
of persons to whom one could address 
a word, no matter how respectful, under 
any pretence whatever. It was appar- 
ent that their company was mutually 
satisfactory, and they intended to keep 
to themselves. This perfect ignoring 
of a neighbor would have decided any- 


THE DECISION 1038 





one but Tarragnoz against trying to fol- 
low the matter further, but we already 
know his horror of the commonplace, 
that is to say, of doing the conventional 
thing. 

‘*Yes, ladies,’’ said he to himself, ‘‘I . 
know very well what you are thinking 
at this moment. Without once turning 
your eyes in my direction, you are 
aware that I have looked at you and 
that I find you beautiful. ‘A man from 
Paris thrown upon a deserted island 
with two Parisiennes of the first qual- 
ity! Of course, he is racking his brains 
to find a way to meet us and of course 
we shall have to give him a little dash 
of cold water.’ Well, ladies, that is. 
where you deceive yourselves, you have 
no need of a hydropathic apparatus. I 


104 THE DECISION 


shall salute you very politely on the 
stairway and in the vestibule, because 
you are my compatriots, and that is 
all!”’ 

This severe modus vivendi did not 
prevent Paul from inquiring the names 
of the two handsome ladies. They 
were, aS he had foreseen, mother and 
daughter, the latter the Countess de la 
Guernerie, the other simply Madame 
Villedieu. Halim, the superb Egyptian 
with the ebony face, who watched at the 
portals of this ‘‘Louvre,’’ completed 
this information with some details of 
small interest: ‘‘They had arrived 
from Paris the preceding week with but 
little baggage; their apartment was se- 
cured in advance at the Villa Cleopatra, 
a dependency of the hotel where the 





THE DECISION 105 





price is higher; their femme de chambre 
(you should have seen the grimace of 
Halim) was at least fifty and not at 
all agreeable.’’ Halim believed they 
were both widows; they saw no 
one; they arose early to drink the 
waters, and drove out in a carriage 
each afternoon; returning to their 
rooms after dinner, they did not again 
leave. 

This was the same sort of life that 
Paul led, except that he had no femme 
de chambre and went out regularly 
afoot. He walked for hours through 
the pine forests, whose paths with seats, 
with cafés, indeed even with chapels, 
mounted toward the summit, descended_- 
to the river, winding round hills, with- 
out ever bringing the promenader back 


106 6= THE DECISION 


to the same point. End to end 
they would have extended many 
miles. 

The first time that he bowed to the 
two ladies in the garden which separ- 
ated the Villa from the larger estab- 
lishment, they responded with a marked 
difference in their movements. The 
younger appeared as if acknowledging 
the receipt of a printed invitation, such 
as one sends to everybody; the other 
added a look of rapid and satisfied in- 
telligence which simply meant, ‘‘Cer- 
tainly we are from the same country 
and I see that you have good manners. 
Please continue.’’ 

For some days matters ran thus. 
Madame Villedieu sometimes bowed 
first in the English fashion, but as to the 





THE DECISION 107 


countess, it was clear that she could not 
tell if the young man who had removed 
his hat when meeting her had a blond 
moustache or black whiskers. 

‘Is this affectation or prudery?”’ 
asked Tarragnoz to himself. Upon con- 
sidering it thoroughly, he was forced 
to admit that it was simply indifference. 
The countess seemed to be deprived of 
the faculty of interesting herself in any 
subject whatever, animate or inanimate. 
‘When about to dine, to the question of 
her mother who studied the menu, the 
observer could divine from a distance 
that her reply was always the same: ‘‘It 
is immaterial to me.’’ And when in- © 
stalled in the landau by the side of her 
mother, to the question, ‘‘ Where shall 
we go to-day?’’ Tarragnoz heard her 





108 THE DECISION 


respond, ‘‘Wherever you like, mam- 
ma.’’ 

The full sonorous voice, pitched rath- 
er low, did not seem to be that of a com- 
plaining person, suffering in body and 
lamenting someone deceased. Halim 
must be deceived in believing her to be 
a widow. Monsieur de la Guernerie 
was doubtless a husband neither good 
nor bad, and she, like so many others, 
was neither adored nor detested; prob- 
ably his wife used to reply to him, ‘‘It 
is immaterial to me’’—at the table, in 
the carriage, or anywhere. Tarragnoz 
fancied he could hear him say, ‘‘My 
dear, shall I accompany you to Bohe- 
mia or remain here to open the hunt- 
ing season?’’ and her reply, ‘‘It is im- 
material to me, my friend.’’ It was 





THE DECISION 109 


more than probable that this proud 
beauty was neither broken-hearted nor 
a victim of delusion; she was simply a 
young woman bored with herself. 
Putting himself in the count’s place, 
he found her exasperating; upon his 
own account it was of course no conse- 
quence whether she was cold or loving. 
But how could the husband prefer the 
company of young partridges to the 
company of such an attractive young 
woman? In all justice she was worthy 
of a husband who would take some 
pains to draw her out of her torpor. 
This question formed itself in the 
mind of Tarragnoz one day, when he 





saw Madame de la Guernerie leave her. 


carriage to drink some milk at a rustic 
café where he himself was seated at one 


> 


110 THE DECISION 


of the tables. The extraordinary splen- 
dor of the mountain sun gave to the 
mass of her golden brown hair an un- 
real character, like the halo of a saint. 
But the dark brown eyes, sometimes 
feasting upon the surrounding verdure, 
sometimes following with greediness 
the velvety cascade of milk as it was 
poured into the glass, the nostrils 
opened to pine breezes, the red lips, 
such as painters never give to mouths 
created specially for celestial joys—all 
of these indicated anything but a saint; 
yet the noble elevation of her thoughts 
and habits showed in all her person. 
Madame de la Guernerie and her 
mother evidently believed themselves 
alone in the little restaurant to which 
few persons came as the season was 





THE DECISION iil 


nearly ended. ‘Tarragnoz, hidden by. 
the ivy curtain which separated their 
arbors, observed all the motions of the 
young woman. In order to crumble a 
little black bread into her cream she 
slowly removed her gloves and, like 
beautiful birds given their liberty, her 
rosy fingers stretched themselves, 
sparkling like mother of pearl. She 
wore no jewels. A little apple-cheeked 
girl of ten years came up to her offering 
some wild flowers. For the first time 
Paul saw her smile. He smiled himself 
at the hackneyed comparison that came 
to his mind. It was like the sparkle of 
snow in the bosom of a purple cloud; 
but later, on descending the slopes al- 
ready in the shadow, he asked himself, 
‘*Does she never smile except in the 





12 THE DECISION 


woods?’’ In fact, when he saw her two 
hours later under the lights of the Sa- 
voy, she was more exasperating than 
ever with her appearance of universal 
indifference. 

The next day while Tarragnoz was 
smoking in the vestibule, he saw the two 
ladies cross to their carriage, where the 
Egyptian negro helped them to their 
seats. At the old Versailles form of | 
salute which Tarragnoz gave them, they 
responded each according to her habit. 
The carriage departed and Halim re- 
turned. 

‘‘Wine day to drive up to Stephame 
Warte!”’ 

Halim had thrown this remark at the 
captain as he passed him, with no other 
motive than an inborn need of saying 





THE DECISION 118 





something, no matter what, to someone, 
no matter who. The captain struggled 
for five minutes against the desire to do 
the most commonplace act in the world. 
Finally he took his hat and left the ho- 
tel, and when he was certain that Halim 
could no longer see him, he hailed an 
Einspaenner, figuring that, notwith- 
standing the short cut open to pedes- 
trians, the landau of the ladies would 
reach its destination ahead of him. 

“Stephanie Warte, Kutscher; ge- 
schwind.’’ 

These were all the German words he 
knew. | 

Stephanie Warte is a semi-feudal 
tower, surmounting a café, and over- 
looking all the valley at Tepl and its 
mantle of forests. The ascension of two 


14 THE DECISION 


thousand feet is sufficiently long even 
ina carriage. It was intensely hot, and 
Paul seeing the horse white with foam 
congratulated himself on not being 
obliged to walk, at the same time com- 
passionately regretting that he had not 
taken a double team. When he arrived 
at the café it was the hour for serving 
coffee and fifty or more promenaders 
were upon the esplanade; but among 
those at the tables he perceived neither 
the countess nor her mother. He had, 
however, recognized the coachman 
smoking his porcelain pipe in the sta- 
bles. In looking more carefully he dis- 
covered the two ladies some distance 
away in the crowd, leaning upon the 
_ parapet of a little terrace from which a 
grand view spread out before them. 





THE DECISION 115 


This time Madame de la Guernerie did 
not smile. 

Tarragnoz, hidden behind the trees, 
saw her clasp her hands with a passion- 
ate gesture of admiration, while her 
mother’s face brightened up. 

‘Decidedly, her preferences are for 
nature,’’ thought the young man, 

How long they would have remained, 
one contemplating nature, the other 
contemplating the young lady herself, 
may be imagined. A clap of thunder 
echoed many times in the neighboring 
gorges put an end to their contempla- 
tions. The countess, not in the least 
afraid, seemed delighted to have this 





picturesque element added to the tab- _. 


leau. Her mother, more prudent, led 
her away from the esplanade, which 


16 THE DECISION 


was already vacated by the more cau- 
tious ones. At the stables the captain 
again met his two compatriots. The 
horses had just been harnessed to their 
landau, but the shafts of Paul’s Hins- 
paenner remained empty. A groom ap- 
proached Tarragnoz and, with the ges- 
ture of a tragedian, spoke to him in 
German. 

‘Do you think that I can understand 
that?’’ said the captain, considerably 
disturbed as he saw the first drops of a 
heavy shower falling. 

Madame Villedieu, already installed 
with her daughter under the bonnet of 
the carriage, beckoned to him to come 
nearer. ; 

‘‘Monsieur,’’ translated she, ‘‘your 
horse is rolling upon the straw with an 





THE DECISION 117 


attack of colic. Probably they gave 
him water too cold.’’ 

Tarragnoz made a low bow. 

‘*Thanks, Madame. When my horse 
is well, if he gets well, I will inform 
him of your gracious interest.”’ 

The speech of the young humorist 
was ludicrous under the circumstances. 
Madame de la Guernerie almost smiled. 
‘As for her mother, she understood that 
Tarragnoz found her more sympathetic 
to beasts than to men. To read between 
the lines is one of the admirable gifts 
of the French language, especially when 
it is a French woman who reads. 

**Monsieur,”’ said she, ‘‘my daughter 





and I do not intend to allow a com- - 


patriot to descend the mountain on foot 
in such a shower; do we, Valentine ?”’ 


118 THE DECISION 





‘*As you like, mamma.”’ 

‘‘The invitation is not pressing,”’ 
thought Tarragnoz, ‘‘but, anyway, her 
‘It is immaterial to me,’ would have 
been worse.’’ It rained in torrents. He 
took his place in the landau, making 
the usual excuses for the inconvenience 
that he caused, although he caused none 
whatever. 

His good humor disappeared as he 
felt himself ridiculous in the eyes of the 
two women in this role of a small, deli- 
cate young man, picked up along the 
road to prevent his taking cold; but it 
was to himself that Tarragnoz felt 
most ashamed. He possessed precisely 
that kind of refined self-respect to 
which an inward derision is the least 
supportable of all. He had intended 


THE DECISION 119 





to astonish, and perhaps spite these two 
women by his cold reserve, and now 
he had been obliged to accept their serv- 
ice as interpreters, thankfully to make 
use of their carriage; in fact, to place 
himself under obligation to them when 
he really wished to give them a lesson. 
Thus placed, their companion of the 
route could hardly be expected to shine 
as a conversationalist, although under 
the circumstances the least he could do 
was to amuse them for an hour. While 
he sought for a subject other than the 
rain, the mud, or the surprising changes 
of weather in the Valley of Tepl, it was 
Madame Villedieu again who relieved 
him from his embarrassment. 
‘‘Monsieur,’’ said she, ‘‘Carlsbad 
seems to bore you considerably.”’ 


1200 THE DECISION 


**No more than I anticipated, Ma- 
dame. I was warned by my doctor, who 
gave me the choice between Vichy and 
the waters of Bohemia.’’ 

‘Just the same with us, but if I had 
been a man I would haye preferred 
Vichy, where the pill of treatment is 
disguised in the preserves of the Ca- 
sino.”’ | 

‘*Horrible mixture! When I was a 
child, after my cod liver oil they gave 
me a mint lozenge, and the result was 
that without converting me to the rem- 
edy I had a horror of the bonbon. I 
ought also to say that Carlsbad has 
given me a delightful surprise. The 
surroundings of the place, beautiful 
beyond comparison, possess an inexplic- 
able charm, restful and purifying, 





THE DECISION 121 


which even the same scenery in our 
country would not have.’’ 

Madame de la Guernerie, who had 
not yet spoken, said with a tranquil and 
deep voice, ‘‘It is true, and I have often 
asked myself why it is so.”’ 

‘*Because the human element plays a 
great role in nature. These Bohemians 
are an honest and conscientious race. 
The roadmen who keep the pretty roads 
in such good order work faithfully 
during their short day. Have you ever 
seen our equipages of the Bois de Bou- 
logne give way to any work whatever? 
My doctor here remained with me for 
half an hour in order to decide if I 
ought to take a glass of water more or. 
a glass the less. The street sweepers 
take a thousand cares not to allow a 





122 THE DECISION 


single microbe to escape. I love the 
Austrians because for them conscience 
still exists.”’ 

‘*You believe in it, then, Monsieur ?’’ 

‘*Yes, Madame, for the same painful 
reason that sometimes makes me believe 
in too narrow shoes. Willing or un- 
willing, they make themselves felt.’’ 

**T have met men who have seemed to 
know where they could be procured 
sufficiently large,’’? said Madame de la 
Guernerie. 

She relapsed into silence, and Ma- 
dame Villedieu changed the subject by 
asking the young man, ‘‘Are you the 
son or the nephew of the celebrated 
painter ?”’ 

“‘T am his son, but not his successor. 
I belong to the army.”’ : 





THE DECISION 128 


‘Where is your garrison ?”’ 

‘*In Paris, Madame, if one might call 
the ante-chamber of a general, whose 
aide de camp I am, a garrison. He is 
detached from the staff and is some- 
what out of health, and that gives me 
the time to be ill myself, as you ob- 
serve.”” 

Thereupon they talked of Paris, 
where these ladies spent only three 
months in the winter, and Madame 
Villedieu remarked, ‘‘ At the first signs 
of spring my daughter drags me to the 
country.”’ 

In listening to this badly disguised 
complaint, Paul understood that the 
mother and daughter were not always 
in accord. 

*‘As for me, I adore Paris—for a 





124 THE DECISION 


couple of weeks—since I have passed 
two years away from it.”’ 

“‘That would be a history of many, 
infatuations, if frankness were less 
known in the world,’’ remarked the 
countess. ) 

‘‘Good!’’ thought the captain, ‘‘that 
was addressed to our rascal of a hus- 
band. Is it necessary, then, to believe 
that in the eyes of her lawful owner a 
woman ceases to be beautiful so 
quickly ?”’ ei 

Placed opposite to Madame de la 
Guernerie for an hour, Paul learned to 
appreciate her beauty as a lesson which 
one never forgets. 





WIT 
THE MEERSCHAUM PIPE 


The next day, having turned down 
the corner of one of his ecards, he 
crossed the garden and rang the bell 
of the Villa Cleopatra when he knew 
the ladies were not at home. He thus 
very correctly thanked them for the 
kindness shown him, leaving them to 
make the advance if they desired to 
continue the acquaintance. The same 
evening, as he was finishing his dinner, 
Madame Villedieu motioned to him to 
come to her table. 

“T regret,’’ said she, ‘‘that I missed ~ 
your call. As we leave Carlsbad so 

125 


1266 THE DECISION 


soon, I propose making amends at once 
if you have no more amusing project 
for this evening.”’ 

Shortly afterward he entered the ele- 
gant, flowery, well-lighted drawing- 
room where Madame Villedieu alone 
awaited him—a fact which changed his 
good humor into sulkiness. Madame de 
la Guernerie on account of fatigue had 
retired to her room. 

‘*As for me,’’ confessed the mother, 
*‘I love to sit up late. I read, L em- 
broider, or I have a game of solitaire 
when my daughter is not here, for she 
cannot endure the sight of cards.’’ 

“‘T have already noticed,’’ said Tar- 
ragnoz, smiling, ‘‘that your tastes and 
those of your daughter are not always 
the same.”’ 





THE DECISION 127 


‘*Since the death of her husband 
she has carried her retirement from 
the world to an exaggerated length; I 
deplore it, if only for the sake of 
her health, But you, Monsieur, 
are you not something of a misan- 
thrope ?”’ 

**Oh, Madame! that is a big word. I 
believe that my character is simply 
badly formed. I always see the bad 
side of things, and that defect makes a 
human being detestable. I have even 
the great misfortune of seeing my own 
faults and of knowing that my neigh- 
bors also discover them. To imagine 
that one is perfect and admired by 
everyone is the secret of absolute felic- 
ity.”’ 

**And of absolute egotism.”’ 





128 THE DECISION 


‘‘Goodness, Madame, they are all 
one.’ 

‘‘Have you no friends of your own 
age to draw you into their pleasures ?”’ 

‘‘My generation is not a gay one, 
Madame. You are too near to it not 
to understand. As to friendship—I 
know of nothing in the world more 





beautiful or more useless. You have 
doubtless many friends ready to give up 
their life for you, have they ever been 
able to relieve you of a headache? Have 
you ever been able to prevent them 
from catching cold ?”’ , 

““Yes,’’ replied the charming woman, 
with a malicious light in her eyes, ‘‘I 
have been able to offer them a place in 
my carriage at the moment of a sud- 
den shower.’’ 


THE DECISION’ 129 


*‘But please remember that the un- 
fortunate man welcomed by you had not 
the honor of being your friend, and 
that gives me the right to repeat the 
question—‘ What is the use of friend- 
ship ?’ 9? 

*‘Sometimes by bad advice to cause 
ruin, sorrow and death!’’ responded a 
voice vibrating and deep, behind him. 

The young man turned. From a por- 
tiére, pushed aside by her beautiful 
bare arm, Madame de la Guernerie 
swayed like an apparition which might 
be called tragic, if the light mauve satin 
of a petgnoir with large sleeves, the 
golden brown of the hair and the won- 
derful complexion with matchless brown 
eyes, were the ordinary attributes of the 
heroine of a tragedy. The visitor un- 





‘130 THE DECISION 





derstood that from her boudoir ad- 
joining the drawing-room she had fol- 
lowed the conversation. He might have 
felt flattered that she desired to join 
them, but the words which had just fal- 
len from that beautiful mouth caused 
him a painful emotion, the more so as 
they were unexpected. Had she also 
upon her conscience the death of a 
friend ? 

He arose, stammering some polite 
phrase, to which Madame de la Guer- 
nerie responded only by extending her 
hand. She was already seated. 

‘‘Monsieur,’’ said she, becoming sud- 
denly calm, ‘‘in talking philosophy with 
my mother you deceive yourself from 
the beginning. She is the young and 
charming one; I am serious, which is 


THE DECISION i381 





doubtless a hateful defect in your eyes, 
but I no longer pretend to be perfect.”’ 

The young man understood that none 
of his remarks had been lost. ‘‘I be- 
lieve that were women perfect they 
would perhaps become detestable,’’ af- 
firmed he, a little vexed. ‘‘ Thank good- 
ness, I have never known that distress- 
ing situation.”’ 

Soon the young woman appeared to 
be tired and said good-night to her 
mother. ‘‘Do you play piquet?’’ she 
asked Tarragnoz. ‘‘Yes? Very well, 
come to-morrow and have a game with 
mamma. She is here on my account, 
and the least I can do is to arrange 
some pleasure for her.”’ 

The captain’s night was greatly dis- 
turbed. The phantom, whose appear- 


1322 THE DECISION 


ance had been less regular of late, 
mixed itself up in a horribly displeas- 
ing manner with the mauve satin and 
glorious hair of a living and charming 
young woman. ‘The day following 
seemed long to him. Already upon all 
the sodded slopes which surround Carls- 
bad one could hear the noise of carpets 
beaten, like the rolling of a drum. This 
announced the early closing of the pen- 
sions and hotels. 

After dinner Paul went to the Villa 
Cleopatra. 

‘‘Come,’’ said the countess pleas- 
antly; ‘‘commence your game. As I 
am a serious person I will keep to my. 
thoughts.”’ 

“The moment has arrived when I 
must admit to you a deception,”’ said 





THE DECISION 1338 


the captain. ‘‘I have never touched a 
eard in my life.’’ 

**It is a good point,’’ declared the 
countess. ‘‘Then you can falsify at 
times ?”? 

‘*¥ would like to see the hero capable 
of admitting that he does not play 
piquet, knowing that two amiable 
women would at once respond, ‘In that 
case, dear sir, you are good for noth- 
ing; remain at home’.’’ 

“There is yet time to give you that 
advice.”’ 

“But I am good for something. You 
have said so yourself. I can talk phil- 
osophy.”’ 

**Eh! Let us have a lecture. That is 
the proper thing just now.”’ 

““Give me a subject.’’ 





134 THE DECISION 


‘‘The art of being happy,’’ suggested 
Valentine de la Guernerie, raising her 
beautiful eyebrows. 

“¢ Alas! I am badly equipped for that. 
It would be as reasonable to ask you to 
give us a talk on the art of being plaan.’’ 

‘“‘Mamma,’’ bewailed the countess, 
‘‘what a pity it is that you left your al- 
bum at home!’’ 

Her words did not exceed in irony the 
limit for a woman properly brought up, 
but Paul understood that they made fun 
of the madrigal of which he was proud. 

‘‘Pardon me,’’ said he, trying not to 
show himself piqued, ‘‘I forgot that we 
are no longer in France.”’ 

“‘Tt has occurred to me,’’ observed 
the countess, ‘‘that you prefer conscien- 
tious Bohemia to clever France.”’ 





THE DECISION 135 





‘* At this moment,’’ responded he, ‘‘T 
think only of the country which has 
been good for me.”’ 

Saying these words he kissed the 
hand of Madame Villedieu and made a 
low bow to her daughter. He reached 
the hotel a little earlier than he ex- 
pected. 

His sleep was a long time coming, 
but the time passed very quickly in 
bringing an action against the coun- 
tess. Tio resume, in a word, the long 
speech of the prosecutor, that young 
Woman was unbearable. Hven her 
beauty counted in the eyes of Paul as 
a grievance, or rather as a disagreeable 
intrusion, obstructing the circulation. 
Since seeing her he had not been able 
to move with the same freedom of ac- 


1386 THE DECISION 





tion. He was reminded of the com- 
plaints often expressed by one of his 
friends who had passed a season near 
Avraneches. The friend was struck with 
the grandeur of Mount Saint Michael 
and was unable to ride in a carriage, 
go out on foot, sail in a boat, or even 
to remain at his window, without per- 
ceiving the ‘‘wonder.”’ 

Paul, in reality, saw this other won- 
der but twice a day, yet when she was 
not in sight he asked himself, in spite 
of his efforts to think of something 
else, if this other phantom would not 
appear under the colonnades of the 
Kursaal, along the row of shops 
of the Alte-Wiese, or—where she might 
especially be expected—at the turn- 
ing of some wild lane of the pine forest, 


THE DECISION 137 





a proper frame for her fairy-like 
beauty. 

Yet, however, he realized that the ob- 
session of which he seemed to complain 
left in him a disagreeable void. This 
woman who embarrassed him and made 
fun of him when she was present would 
be missed when she left, just as Mount 
Saint Michael, removed from view on 
some fine morning, would have been 
missed by his friend. 

**All this,’’ said he to himself, ‘‘is 
pure imagination. I am like aman who 
has upon his tongue a pimple no larger 
than the head of a pin and imagines he 
has a mountain in his mouth. What- 


ever happens, the countess will not . 


have the occasion to regret her album. 
To-morrow our acquaintance will re- 


1388 THE DECISION 





turn to merely a bow. My reason or- 
ders it.”’ 

Unfortunately it was not wholly in 
others that Valentine de la Guernerie 
admired a conscience. She had exam- 
ined her own and it had blamed her for 
having been malicious. The result was 
that the next day Tarragnoz saw her 
coming toward the armchair in which 
he was seated with his newspaper in 
hand and a cigarette in his lips. 

“‘Captain,’’ said she, ‘‘I see that you 
are a smoker and I venture to ask your 
assistance. I would like to have your 
help in choosing a meerschaum pipe, as 
I fear the dealer will take advantage of 
my ignorance. Will you perform this 
fatigue-duty forthwith? Mamma, I 
will return in half an hour.”’ 


THE DECISION _ 1389 





Five minutes later the countess and 
her companion were descending the 
pathway broken with steps and shaded 
with dwarf linden trees which runs 
from Schlossberg to the single street of 
the lower town. With the facility of a 
real society woman, she began immedi- 
ately one of those agreeable conversa- 
tions which naturally follow the meet- 
ing of two friends. Although she 
avoided the slightest allusion, Paul un- 
dersteod perfectly that she was indem- 
nifying him for the wrong of the eve- 
ning before. To say that he lowered his 
arms from the first moment would 
hardly be true. 

However, the peace had been signed, » 
without the slightest direct mention, 
when the two enemies of the previous 


1440 THE DECISION 





evening arrived at the pipe-maker’s. 
There Madame de la Guernerie gave her © 
orders, to tell the truth without much 
consultation with Tarragnoz. She or- 
dered a monogram to be made in relief. 
She even indicated the design with a 
firm stroke of her pencil—a design 
so original that it struck her com- 
panion. The letters R. T. remained in 
his eyes. 

‘““Your friend will certainly be 
pleased,’’ said he; ‘‘for I think this 
present is not intended for a cousin.”’ 

‘‘No, it is indeed for a friend, and for 
one of the most devoted friends that I 
have.”’ 

‘Without further explanation, Ma- 
dame de Ja Guernerie, having given her 
address, left the shop and went slowly 


THE DECISION 14! 


back toward the Savoy. As might be 
expected, in view of the motive which 
brought about their reunion at this 
time, they spoke of friendship. Tarrag- 
noz, exclusively imbued with French 
ideas (without approving of them), 
maintained that friendship of one sex 
for another was impossible, unless the 
combined ages of the two parties 
equalled a century. 

“‘How very tiresome!’’ said the 
countess. ‘‘Then I must wait some 
forty years before giving you a meer- 
schaum pipe ?”’ 

*‘Oh! by that time I shall have long 
ceased to be for you an acquaintance 
of the city of waters. How hatefully~ 
commonplace it is for people to cling to 
you simply because they have waited 





142 THE DECISION 


their turn at the same spring for two 
or three weeks!’’ 

‘‘Quite commonplace, yet one cannot 
always wait for a strong friendship to 
begin in the lifeboat of a sinking ves- 
gel.” 

“That would be hardly correct. The 
shipwreck is one of our conventional 
ideas from which one must never de- 
part. Existence in what you eall soci- 
ety is based upon a system that has for 
its object the suppression of everything 
unexpected; in other words, every im- 
pulse. If you owe your fortune to your 
inveigling for a legacy, and if in three 
or four different ground-floor apart- 
ments I receive the wives of three or 
four particularly dear friends, we could 
tranquilly go our way, because such 





THE DECISION 148 





things are not contrary to the system. 
But if, in obedience to an impulse which 
I assume might be reciprocal, we were 
to establish a serious friendship, open 
and innocent, then you would be a rebel 
without principles, and I a sad individ- 
ual, compromising women.”’ 

‘*Good Lord!’’ said she, laughing, ‘‘T 
hope the world will never know that I 
took you to help me choose a pipe. 
Anyway, I have never seen a man main- 
tain discouraging theories in such a 
cheerful manner.”’ 

‘*You know the proverbial gaiety of 
undertakers’ assistants. Then I shall 
say to you au revoir—for forty years. 
The misfortune is that in forty days~ 
you will have forgotten that I exist.’’ 

“Will you wager that I forget you?”’ 


1444 THE DECISION 





‘Ten to one,’’ responded Paul, kiss- 
ing her extended hand. 

Two days later he accompanied the 
two ladies to the last Carlsbad Express, 
for the season was at an end. He had 
pardoned Madame de la Guernerie for 
having trampled upon his madrigals. 

‘“‘T will make you a sign when we 
again become Parisiennes,’’ she had 
promised. 

As for himself, his treatment finished, 
he regained France by way of Munich 
and the Italian lakes. He again took 
up his duties near his General. His 
physical and, above all, his moral condi- 
tion was better. The morning often 
came to him without his having been 
awakened by the apparition of Walter, 
but outwardly there was no change in 


THE DECISION 145 


his misanthropy. In the eyes of the 
world, and of his comrades, he appeared 
either ‘‘cracked’’ or a snob, according 
to tastes. 





VIIL 
RUE DE L’YVETTE 


Toward the latter part of November 
he received this note: 


‘‘Monsieur, I have won my wager. Some 
evening when you have neither a worldly obli- 
gation nor an ‘impulse’ permitted or forbidden 
by the ‘system’ you will find us, my mother and 
me, in our chimney-corner at half-past nine. If 
you have forgotten our names, it will be suffi- 
cient for me to say that we are the ladies of the 
Villa Cleopatra. That is enough to eall you 
back again to the scent. Kind regards from 
your acquaintances of the City of Waters.’ 

‘“Villedieu La Guernerie, 
‘*14, rue de l’Yvette (it’s fright- 
fully far), at the end of the court.?’ 


She who had scribbled this card per- 
haps knew the mind of the person to 
146 


THE DECISION 147 





whom it was addressed, as its receipt 
caused no surprise. One should under- 
stand by that that ever since the light- 
ing up of heating apparatus and the ap- 
pearance of muffs, he had asked him- 
self, ‘‘ Will the sign which she promised 
come to-day ?”’ 

This was not, as one might wrongly 
suppose, the confidence of a coxcomb 
certain of having produced an indelible 
impression; but he had read in the eyes 
of the countess—and others before him 
had read the same thing—that a prom- 
ise coming from her was equivalent to 
an accomplished fact. Although he 
prided himself upon his scrupulous 
faithfulness in all social engagements, 
this did not prevent his sending his or- 
derly ten minutes later to the telegraph 


48 THE DECISION 


office with a despatch for the mistress 
of a house where he was expected to 
dinner. ‘‘Unexpected work,’’ ‘affairs 
of service,” “regrets,” ‘sorrow’— 
nothing was lacking in the imposture 
of his excuse. Which one of us is with- 
out sm? In these days, they no longer, 
thank goodness, pelt a man with stones 
even for such impoliteness as this. 

To say that the rue de 1’Yvette is 
situated in Auteuil gives but a faint 
idea of the distance. The inhabitants 
of Auteuil, themselves ignorant of the 
name, declare with emphasis that ‘‘it is 
a lost quarter,’’ thus giving one the im- 
pression of being near the Stock Ex- 
change. Accustomed to the study of 
maps, the captain arrived at the indi- 
cated address without mistaking the 





THE DECISION 149 


way and without being late. Madame 
‘Villedieu and her daughter certainly re- 
sided at the end of a court, but it was 
their court; and the little hotel—a jewel 
—was their hotel. 

In a drawing-room, surprisingly 
large, some shaded electric lamps 
lighted the room without dazzling the 
eyes. In a vase placed upon the table 





were a dozen superb roses; remarkable 
simplicity in these times of universal 
wealth, when the least bowrgeoise in her 
floral decorations considers quantity be- 
fore everything else. Besides there was 
no apparent desire to ‘‘strike with sur- 
prise’”’ or even to instruct the public. 
Nothing to reveal whether one was in 
the house of a great pianist, a celebrated 
sculptor, a collector of specimens, or in 


10 THE DECISION 





the house of a subscriber to Revues, en- 
dowed with a ferocious appetite, or 
even in the house of a simple bridge 
player. But we already know that Ma- 
dame de la Guernerie did not like cards. 
Manifestly she loved all of the comforts 
of life, moral and physical. Paul Tar- 
ragnoz employed precisely those terms 
in responding to the question of Ma- 
dame de la Guernerie, who wished to 
know, ‘‘ How he was impressed with the 
place?’? She raised her shoulders 
slightly on seeing his look of surprise at 
her question. 

‘Let us see,’’ said she, ‘‘do you think 
we are vain—or modest—to the point of 
soliciting admiration for ourselves? I 
ask you what you think of this setting ? 
Suppose you were an author, furbish- 


THH DECISION i151 





ing the first twenty pages, describing 
_ this drawing-room and revealing to the 
reader the good qualities or the faults 
of those who live here ?’’ 

Paul, improvising upon the suggested 
theme, recited in the tone of a man read- 
ing in a loud voice: | 

‘*At the first view one concludes that 
the countess and her mother are preoc- 
cupied above everything else with the 
moral and physical comforts of life; or, 
if you prefer, the ideal of their life is 
simplicity, regularity and. comfort. 
They are friends, not the slaves of or- 
der, as shown by the arrangement of 
things, nearly all of which are useful 
and not more numerous than they 
should be without becoming a burden. 
The furniture, whose convenience is 


152 THE DECISION 


not less reproachable than its taste, is 
not obliged to offer proofs of nobility; 
one sees that it is never asked, ‘Where 
did you come from?’ but ‘ What are you 
good for?’ ”’ 

‘‘Bravo!’’ interrupted Madame de la 
Guernerie. ‘‘You may add, that we put 
that question not only to furniture but 
to persons.”’ 

**All that,’’? said Madame Villedieu, 
without bitterness, ‘‘amounts to this— 
that we appear like two good bour- 
geoises.”” 

‘*No, you have the appearance of per- 
sons who, having travelled and suffered 





in their peregrinations—I speak from 
_ experience—know the price of happi- 
ness and repose.”’ 

‘Tt is true,’’ admitted the countess, 


THE DECISION 158 


becoming a little sad, ‘‘we have trav- 
elled much in the country of affliction. 
I have an uncle, an old sea captain, who 
is gently growing old in his retirement. 
Although he was well situated in Brit- 
tany, he established himself in Touraine, 
because the sight of the sea recalled to 
him ‘too small allowances of tobacco,’ to 
use his own words. You know now why. 
we inhabit this family pension by our- 
selves, where only heroism and friend- 
ship could bring a human being. The 
sight of the world would recall to us 
‘too small allowances of tobacco,’ as my, 
uncle would say. Let it be said in pass- 
ing that the aversion of the old sailor 





for the empire of Neptune works to our _- 


profit, for he lends us his castle in Mor- 
bihan,”’ 


1544 THE DECISION 


Madame Villedieu breathed a sigh, 
‘It is nearly as far from Paris as the 
rue de 1’Yvette!”’ 

‘‘Patience!’’ said Madame de la Guer- 
nerie, ‘‘you know very well, mamma, it 
is understood that when we are old we 
shall live in the place Vendéme, and the 
society columns of the Gaulois will re- 
sound with your name, for we shall have 

had time to forget the pitching and the 
nausea.’’ From the moment he entered 
the house of these ladies, Paul was as- 
tonished that he should feel so little like 
a stranger. Before leaving he men- 
- tioned this surprise. 

“‘Hrom the time of your leaving 
Carlsbad until I rang your door-bell 
this evening, we had completely lost 
sight of each other. I was ignorant of 





THH DECISION 155 


your address and did not consider it 
proper to ask you for it, yet this evening 
I discovered that our friendship has in- 
creased. in the interval, just as children 
placed with a village nurse continue to 
grow as fast as before.”’ 

‘‘They often grow faster than other 
children,’’ said Madame de la Guernerie 
with her ‘‘dangerous’’ smile. 

Tarragnoz qualified the smile in his 
thoughts, because it resembled the sud- 
den and charming scratching of a young 
cat which playfully pretends to be 
asleep. 

All the time, reflecting upon this 
friendship,—he had plenty of time dur- _ 
ing his long journey home—Paul real-— 
ized that in the wall of the past no door 
of communication between them gave 





156° THE DECISION 





any appearance of opening itself. With 
Madame Villedieu and her daughter he 
had never been surprised by the least 
sign of curiosity concerning his previ- 
ous existence. Bearing in mind his de- 
sire to forget a certain drama in his life, 
one may judge if this lack of interest 
was not agreeable. The result was, how- 
ever, that it deprived him of the right 
to be curious himself. Questioning, he 
risked being interrogated in his turn, 
and his comrades had already discov- 
ered that the entire period of his career 
in Africa was in their conversations a 
forbidden subject. 

Be that as it may, anyone understand- 
ing his nature would be able to divine 
that these two women, unusual in their 
retirement, each one attractive accord- 


THE DECISION 157 


ing to her fashion, were for him ideal 
friends. His visits to the rue de 
1’Y vetie, after the dinner hour, soon be- 
came a habit. He was very quickly en- 
lightened upon the intimate character 
of the relations between the countess 
and her mother. The latter manifestly. 
sacrificed her own tastes, first through 
fondness for her daughter (that goes 
without saying) but also through a de- 
sire to make reparation for an injustice. 
What had -been the maternal wrong 
Paul had no means of knowing. The 
question put with an indifferent air to 
some of his acquaintances had enlight- 
ened him but little. No one seemed to 
have known the Count de la Guernerie._. 
However, one friend, thus interrogated, 
believed that “‘the poor Valentine,” 





158 THE DECISION 





very unhappy in her domestic affairs, 
was finally abandoned by her husband 
who, as was highly proper, went off to 
die in America. 

Ié should be noted that Tarragnoz 
carefully avoided even mentioning the 
name of the street where these ladies 
lived. Having discovered that charm- 
ing isle, he had the caution not to intro- 
duce there anyone else who might prove 
to be an annoyance, possibly a rival. 
One should not conclude, however, from 
this that he admitted to himself having 
a lover’s jealousy upon the subject of 
Madame de la Guernerie, but we have 
already foreseen a motion in that direc- 
tion. This was the beginning of a slid- 
ing scarcely discernible. Thus, accord- 
ing to the laws of gravity, an object 


THE DECISION 159 





starts with a sluggishness which 
scarcely permits one to see that it has 
changed its position. Then the fall be- 
comes more rapid, and mathematicians 
will tell you that the velocity increases 
in a geometrical proportion to the dura- 
tion of its flight. Alone, in the last 
tramway from Auteuil, where he was 
able to meditate, Paul Tarragnoz dis- 
covered one evening that he was sliding 
with full force. 

That is what he risked in frequently 
meeting a young lady delightfully dif- 
ferent from others, under the grateful 
eye of a mother who, after so many 
years, sees the smile hover anew upon 
the lips of her daughter. 

To know this joy Madame Villedieu 
had tried everything within her power, 


1460 THE DECISION 


and fortune had sent to her in the per- 
son of Tarragnoz, if not the remedy 
sought for, at least a salutary diversion 
of the young widow’s sadness. She wel- 
comed him with open arms, without 
concealing it from anyone, not even her 
brother, the captain of the steamship 
Couaridoue, who had come from Tour- 
aine to pass the greater part of the win- 
ter in Paris. The latter, an old bache- 
lor, still robust, passed his evenings in 
places more congenial to him than the 
rue de l’Yvette, consequently he had 
never met Tarragnoz, although he had 
often heard the name of the young man. 
One evening, in the absence of his niece, 
he lectured Madame Villedieu with the 
frankness of a sailor. 

‘You are a great one! To amuse 





THE DECISION 161 


Valentine you have given her this play- 
thing, without asking if he has any- 
thing but a stomach in his anatomy. 
What assurance have you that this 
young fellow hasn’t a heart under his 
belt ?”’ 

‘*It is good for a man to be a little in 
love.”” 

‘* And if he is much in love?’’ 

‘You don’t know him. Your engi- 
neers have never turned your propeller 
with so much regularity as this phi- 
losopher has shown in ordering his in- 
ward ticking.’ 

‘And if it is Valentine who is smit- 
ten?’ 





‘¢Poor little one! Her horror of men ~ 


has killed in her all ability to love.” 
‘‘However, from what you say, this 


162 THE DECISION 


young man does not seem to be such a 
horror to her.’’ 

‘‘Precisely, because he permits her to 
forget that he is a young man. I be- 
lieve that he, too, is limping from some 
great battlefield, but he does not take 
advantage of it to make himself tire- 
some.”’ 

‘*Say the word, then, he amuses you!”’ 

‘‘Do you see much harm in that? If 
you menace the life which I lead !——”’ 

‘The devil take me if I would accept 
it! Valentine takes the advantage of 
her limping, as you say, to require that 
you go lame, too. Well, I am going to 
escape. They are waiting for me at the 
Ministry of Marine.’’ 

‘*Bad subject!”’ 





IX 
THE MEETING WITH DOCTOR TUCHEIM 


Madame Villedieu was not so de- 
prived of the pleasures of the world that 
she wished to complain of it. She re- 
ceived each Tuesday. On that day, dur- 
ing the whole afternoon, the drawing 
room of the little hotel became her pri- 
vate domain where, when the communi- 
cations were not cut off by bad weather, 
a dozen or more friends of both sexes, 
faithful to old recollections, came to 
give the place a little of the atmosphere 
of the world. While they chatted in the 
lower part of the house, Madame de la 

163 


1464 THE DECISION 


Guernerie fortified herself in her bou- 
doir on the floor above. Her mother’s 
visitors, all born under the gay period 
of the second Empire, finding this 
young woman but little amusing, did 
not disturb her. 

Paul, always the first one to arrive on 
the reception days of Madame Villedieu, 
made a pretence of leaving when any- 
one else arrived. Then, after climbing 
twenty stairs, he received the thanks 
of the countess for coming to bore him- 
self with her. At five o’clock their tea 
was sent up, as to children in the school- 
room. Tarragnoz silently watched the 
young woman carry the cup of tea to 
her lips, unfolding an exquisite line 
from the laces of her short sleeve to the 
rosy nail of her delicately carved finger. 





THE DECISION 165 


At such times he no longer saw the 
phantom of Walter. 

Sometimes, even, he had the pleasure 
of passing an entire night without any 
apparition. On the other hand, he was 
often tormented by insomnia, but it was 
. better to be haunted by a living beauty 
than by a dead man with a frightful 
visage. At the same time, thanks to the 
meeting of a comrade better informed 
than himself upon society chronicles, 
Paul made considerable progress in the 
study of history, that is to say, the his- 
tory of Valentine. 

According to this friend, the sorrow 
of the young widow (and this was con- 
soling to the lover), consisted less in the ~ 
loss of her husband than in the regret 
of having married some six years too 





166 THE DECISION 





soon. Guernerie had quickly shown 
himself to be a bad man, but very 
quickly also, and very discreetly, he had 
taken himself off, delivering of his pres- 
ence a wife too prompt in accepting him 
and a mother-in-law with too little dis- 
cernment. He had been killed in a rail- 
road accident in America. As to the 
young widow, the comrade of Tarragnoz 
was unable to say anything. 

She was never seen with him in so- 
ciety, because her dowry had disap- 
peared at the same time with her illu- 
sions, or, perhaps there was a ‘‘myste- 
rious comforter.’’ At these words Paul 
showed his indignation in a manner that 
his comrade could not ignore. 

‘‘Pardon! If you are one of her 
friends——”’ 


THE DECISION | 167 


*‘T have not the honor, but I have 
seen her and her mother at Carlsbad. 
They lived like recluses, speaking to no 
one, and the young woman seemed still 
more unsociable than the other.”’ 

‘*Is she still handsome ?”’ 

‘*Yes, rather,’’ and the conversation 
changed its course. 

It is much to know that Valentine 
had not loved her husband, and still 
more to know that there was no com- 
forter, acknowledged or mysterious. 
But Paul was disturbed in never hear- 
ing the victim speak of her griefs, thus 
showing that her soul was closed to all 
consolations. Usually, those who have 
endured shipwreck, willingly recount ~ 
their adventures. Madame de la Guer- 
nerie, by her silence, let it be seen that 





168 THE DECISION 





even after returning to the shore she re- 
tained in her mouth too much of the bit- 
ter taste of salt water to embark again. — 

This discouraging impression, which | 
Paul more and more experienced, was 
not the result of an affirmative protes- 
tation but he felt that she was as much 
closed to his love as a rose of last spring 
dried in a drawer is closed to the sap. 
‘When she perceived that this young 
man, duly warned, nevertheless ven- 
tured to love her, she was no more 
frightened than a battleship would be of 
a rowboat, and furthermore, she did not 
train her weapons upon him. 

Perhaps she has been told that 
a woman does not know what it 
is to be loved until she is loved ‘‘with- 
out hope.’’ 


THE DECISION | 169 


She soon learned this from Paul’s sad 
avowal. She listened in silence, with- 
out being able to do or say anything to 
dispel the clouds which enveloped his 
heart. This was shortly before her de- 
parture for Brittany, which would natu- 
rally have occurred ‘‘at the first signs 
of spring,’’ as Madame Villedieu had 
remarked ; but the latter, for once, had 
gained three weeks, which showed that 
her daughter was not entirely with- 
out pity for those who suffer. In the 
numerous gardens upon the rue de 
1’Yveite the lilac bushes were almost in 
bloom when they commenced to pack 
their trunks. A radiant sun burst out 
upon ‘‘their last Tuesday.”’ 

‘You must forget me,’’ urged the 
beautiful countess, somewhat late, while 





170 THE DECISION 


the mother served the tea in the draw- 
ing-room below. 

‘“*T must find a way to keep from dy- 
ing, bewailed the deserted man, coy- 
ering with kisses the softest hand in 
the world. 

As this familiarity constituted ‘‘his 
maximum’’ he, without rebelling, re- 
signed himself to the situation. It may 
well be imagined that he so ‘‘resigned 
himself’’ on frequent occasions. 

The railway station of the quay d’Or- 
say resembled more than ever a funeral 
vault on a certain evening when he as- 
sisted Madame Villedieu and her daugh- 
ter aboard the train for Auray. 

He said to the countess, as they 
walked up and down the platform, 
‘*You are naturally delighted to leave.”’ 





THE DECISION 171 


‘Delighted! were it not for 
my mother I would have been 
watching the furze bloom a long time 


9? 





ago. 

The cruelty of this reply was slightly 
contradicted by the look that accompa- 
nied it. 

‘*Will you permit me to come and see 
you in bloom during my autumn fur- 
lough ?”’ 

‘Brittany is free to everybody, my 
friend.’ 

‘*Will you allow me to write to you 
sometimes ?”’ 

“That greatly depends upon what 
you write. Besides, my mother reads 
all my letters.’’ 

Paul exhibited such a profound 
despondency that she gave him her 


172 THE DECISION 


‘“‘dangerous smile.’’ ‘‘All, or near- 
ly all,’’ corrected she with compas- 
sion. 

‘*What shall I do with myself when 
I am not writing to you?’’ 

‘“You may be hoping for a reply to 
your letters.’’ 

Suddenly Valentine, in her turn, ap- 
peared discouraged. ‘‘If only I could 
change places with you!’’ she sighed al- 





most in a whisper. 

They closed the portiéres. That was 
her last word of adieu. Standing upon 
the running-board of the car which had 
already started, Paul had once more 
‘‘his maximum.”’ 

He walked home. As he somewhat 
hurriedly passed the omnibus station of 
the bridge of the Concorde, a man mod- 


THE DECISION 1% 


estly dressed, after carefully studying 
his face, extended his hand. 

‘‘Pardon me,” said ‘Tarragnoz, 
‘<byut——_”” 


‘**‘T pardon you,’’ said a voice with a 





strong accent of the Rhine. ‘‘You have 
never seen me in civilian clothes, and 
it is not surprising that you do not rec- 
ognize me.”’ 

“‘Doctor Tucheim! Is it possible? 
You have left the Legion?’’ 

‘‘A year ago; I am attached to Val 
de Grace. You, captain, if I am not 
mistaken, are an aide de camp?”’ 

‘Ves, a service of idleness. Is it not 
strange that we should meet here by 
chance, in a place so much unlike—— ?’’ 

At this point of the conversa- 


174 THE DECISION 


tion Paul interrupted himself, ab- 
sorbed by the question which came 
to his mind: ‘‘Is this meeting fortu- 
nate ?”’ 

“‘T accompanied some friends here,”’ 
said he for the sake of saying some- 
thing. 





“‘T am waiting for the autobus from 
Montparnasse,’’ explained the doctor. 
**I recognized you, although you have 
changed, but the change is for the bet- 
ter, and you appear younger. We shall 
soon meet again, I hope.’’ 

Tarragnoz felt a sort of fear in again 
seeing this man who was connected with 
the terrible events of his life, but faith- 
ful to his system of keeping a firm con- 
trol over that which Madame Villedieu 
called his ‘‘inward ticking,’’ he asked 


THE DECISION 1% 


the address of Tucheim and promised 
to call soon. The noisy arrival of the 





heavy vehicle separated them. Less 
than a week later he rapped at the door 
of his comrade. 

t the moment he was no longer the 
lover pursued by his dream, but in spite 
of everything the ‘‘innocent assassin’’ 
tortured by remorse. The astonishing 
thing was that he experienced a strong 
desire to open his soul to the ‘‘good 
parson,’’ the guardian of so many 
secrets. Confession is an inborn need 
of human beings before it becomes a 
dogma of faith. Since, according to the 
religious ideas of Tucheim, absolution 
was possible, why could not the doctor 
absolve him for a sin committed three 
years before, assuming that it really 


176 THE DECISION 





was asin? But the visitor lacked the 
courage and he contented himself with 
asking this question: 

‘‘Are you still a devout Christian, 
doctor ?”’ 

‘‘Saint Francois de Sales maintained 
that to be a Christian it was not suffi- 
cient to believe in God and observe . 
Easter, but let us assume that I am. 
Did I care for you badly when you were 
1112”? 

*‘T go much further than that. If I 
had been obliged to die, I should have 
desired to die in your arms. Will you 
have a cigarette, doctor?’’ 

‘‘Permit me to decline. As a good 
Alsatian I prefer the pipe.”’ 

As he said this Tucheim produced a 
red leather case, opened it with the 


THE DECISION 177 





pious slowness of a sacristan unveiling 
a reliquary and took from it a master-_ 
piece of pipe coloring, combining in the 
right places the rich tint of mahogany 
and the untouched whiteness of the 
meerschaum. He filled it without speak- 
ing, fully absorbed in the delicate oper- 
ation; then with his eye fixed upon the 
bowl he lighted it. Happily contented 
he drew in the puffs. 

“An!” exclaimed manenes to him- 
self. 

“‘Isn’t that fine ?”’ 

‘*Let me see.”’ 

The officer took the pipe in his hands 
in order to examine it more closely. 


The monogram ‘‘R. T.’’ stood out in ~ 


relief, Paul recognized it. Ten months 
earlier in his presence Madame de la 


178 THE DECISION 





Guernerie had given the design to the 
pipe-maker. Wishing to be perfectly. 
sure, he examined the interior of the 
case where the faded gold still permitted . 
him to read the name Carlsbad. He 
withheld the question which came to his 
lips, for he did not profane the secrets 
of others any more than his own. Now, 
according to all the evidence, he was 
face to face with the secret of two per- 
sons. Tucheim misapprehended the 
cause of his silence. 

‘‘Come!’’ said the doctor. ‘‘I see that 
you are a connoisseur. That pipe is 
worth fifty franes if it is worth a sou. 
You think that is extravagant for a 
poor devil of a military doctor. Reas- 
_ sure yourself, captain; it was a pres- 
ent.”’ 


THE DECISION 179 


Paul believed that he saw the door 
of confidences beginning to open. 

‘‘Good!’’ said he. ‘‘Some one cares 
for you! <A friend? A sister? A’ 
fiancée ?”’ 

Tucheim made a denial by shaking 
his head, his honest smile expanding 
more and more. 

““No,’’ said he, finally. ‘‘A queen!’’ 

“‘Of Madagascar ?”’ 

‘*No, a queen of beauty and white- 
ness. But, above all, she is the first 
woman that I really admired.”’ 

‘‘And you no longer admire her?’’ 

**Oh! yes, unfortunately.”’ 





xX 
THE BETROTHAL 


Tarragnoz shortened his visit, as con- 
versation had become impossible in the 
troubled state in which he writhed. 
Lovers do not care for a mystery, espe- 
cially when they are left on the other 
side of the wall, behind which the un- 
explained thing is taking place. At this 
time he would have liked to ask a dozen 
questions, all equally impossible. 

Where had the countess known Tu- 
cheim? How had she known the doctor 
well enough to buy him a pipe? Why, 
having consulted him upon the choice 

180 


THE DECISION i81 





of a present, had she carefully hidden 
the name of the person who was to re- 
ceive it? When and where had they 
seen each other? Was-.it unknown to 
Madame Villedieu? 

It must be admitted that all this was 
enough to make a lover uneasy. The 
good ‘‘parson’’ was beyond doubt more 
than an admirer of the countess. Thank 
heaven! he had nothing of that which 
constitutes a romantic hero, the thought 
of which causes the rival’s blood to boil. 
Without doubt he would keep to him- 
self the secret of his adoration. But 
why, if he was on such terms of in- 
timacy with that household, had this 
matter-of-fact doctor adopted the ro- - 
mantic methods of a Don Juan—the 
screen and the ladder of cords? 


182 THE DECISION 


To a lover whose curiosity reached 
the limits of torture, this ensemble of 
contradictions and obscurities eoncern- 
ing a woman who had become his one 
and only thought formed an intolerable 
torment. Upon leaving the doctor he 
started to walk, and this gave him the 
leisure to meditate upon a short plan 
of action. Just now, furious against 
Tucheim, heaven knows why, he wished 
to break with ‘‘one of the most devoted 
friends”? of the countess, for that was 
what she called him. Rendered foolish 
by monstrous suspicions, and believing 
himself the object of an infamous de- 
ception, his dignity demanded that he 
let oblivion cover up his new-born love 
for the countess, just as a rising tide 
submerges the house of sand built by 





THE DECISION 188 


children’s hands; but sometimes we are 
like the child, who returns to his work 
when the waves retire. Paul wrote the 
same evening to Valentine. 

Nothing is more doleful than a love 
letter written with a mental reservation 
in the heart. Madame de la Guernerie 
was too much of a woman not to feel 
that her correspondent desired to punish 
her for something, all the while doing 
his best to smile. She examined her 
conscience and, finding nothing there to 
condemn, she gave Paul to understand 
that their epistolary relations had be- 
gun in a less agreeable manner than 
she had reason to expect. ‘‘I am un- 
happy,” was his vague response, but no ~ 
one could doubt its absolute sincerity. 

Thus disarmed, Valentine consoled 





1848 THE DECISION 


Paul, whom she believed to be saddened 
by a hopeless love. To tell the truth, 
her consolation was as unsatisfactory 
as that of jailers who try to console a 
man condemned to death by offering 
him cigars or playing dominoes with 
him. Nevertheless, between the lines, 
he read that her heart was not less ex- 
quisite than her face, only her replies 
did not aid in the least in solving the 
enigma, the solution of which Paul 
could not ask. 

Ashamed of playing the réle of a spy, 
he returned to Tucheim’s house, and 
was still more ashamed in seeing the 
pleasure his visit caused; but when he 
began to beat the bushes the Alsatian 
pricked up his ears, became as cold as 
ice and showed that it was of no use to 





THE DECISION _ 185 


expect any light from him. Thus the 
two sides held each other in check. 
There was, however, one difference. 
The letters of the countess were reas- 
suring and drew him more and more 
from the idea that such a woman could 
be false. 'Tucheim, on the contrary, 
without being less loyal, had a rough 
hand. Certain looks, certain silences, 
were sufficient to make one believe that 
he suspected the secrets of Paul, while 
Paul was entirely ignorant of his. Be- 
Sides, as may be readily understood, the 
captain was no longer able to bear the 
sight of the odious pipe, which had re- 
placed the phantom of Walter. Little © 
by little the two friends, so recently 
brought together, were again becoming 
separated. One remark of Tucheim 





1386 THE DECISION 


caused the cup of bitterness to overflow. 

‘‘Doctor,’’ said Tarragnoz to him, ‘‘T 
should like to buy that pipe of yours. 
What do you ask for it?’’ 

‘‘My dear fellow,’’ responded the Al- 
satian, ‘‘you are not rich enough.”’ 

‘*But it seems to me that you are com- 
promising the queen.”’ 

‘*Indeed? You find me a tale-bearer ? 
I might be one, but I am not.” 

‘*All the same, if she knew that you 
called her your queen ?”’ 

‘“‘T think she knows, indeed, that I 
have not been enough of a tale-bearer 
with her,’’ replied Tucheim, his eyes 
gravely fixed upon the cloud going out 
of his lips. 

Paul decided that he would not again 
meet this man, formerly so gentle, now 





981 beg 


a§L] YOK WBY OOX OG LVHM ‘SUDOX AO AdIg VAY ANG OL AIT aTOONG J,, 











THE DECISION 187 





so aggressive. Besides, the time ap- 
proached for his visit to Brittany, 
which would furnish the opportunity 
for a thorough explanation with the 
countess. When he was free to go, he 
left Paris and took up his abode in 
Auray, from where, upon his Morbihan 
pony, he was able to reach the habita- 
tion of his friends in one hour by a short 
cut across lots. The pleasure which he 
had for four months anticipated from 
this meeting was fully realized. The 
smile was no longer ‘‘dangerous’’ in the 
sense formerly understood, because it 
had become less rare. Madame de la 
Guernerie was a different woman. In 
her eyes the fugitive rays, evidence of 
the blooming of the first flowers, had 
caught that luminous fire of the sum- 


188 THE DECISION 


mer sun which would shortly yellow the 
harvest, and Paul brought to her feet 
a harvest of love which one last warm 
ray would ripen. 

iWhen Madame Villedieu, fatigued 
from her walk, left Valentine to do the 
honors of the park for their visitor, she 
conducted him obliquely toward the lit- 
tle pine woods, screening the house on 
the side of the sea, a sea so blue that 
one might expect to see the smoke of 
Vesuvius in the distance. They seated 
themselves upon a bench. At this mo- 
ment Paul had no question upon his lips 
other than the adroit and insidious in- 
terrogatories prepared during his night 
journey. 

‘“Why is it,”’ said he, ‘‘that while you 
have become more beautiful, you appear 





THE DECISION 189 


less inaccessible, less distant from this 
earth where poor human beings sigh? 
Is it that your coiffure is not quite in 
the Paris fashion, or your girlish white 
dress and your eyes less mysterious? It 
seems to me that I love you not more, 
but nearer. I said to myself in coming 
here, ‘How many weeks, months, years, 
perhaps, must roll away before I shall 
dare to offer her my life?’ All at once 
in seeing you I felt courageous enough 
to try. When I first saw you, if I had 
been able to speak, what would have 
been your answer? That I am insane? 
Then pay no attention to my words. I 
will fall back again into the abyss where . 
I was, the abyss of sorrow, but also of 
joy, siace I love you and you know it 
and are not displeased.”’ 





199 THE DECISION 


A witness of this scene, desiring the 
success of Tarragnoz, would have pre- 
ferred to see more tenderness or more 
anger in the eyes of Valentine. She 
had. listened without interrupting him. 
Coming to the question at issue, as the 
lawyers say, she made this remark, im- 
pressed with more humor than emotion: 
‘‘That’s what it is to be a clever man. 
If you win I must pay; if you lose the 
blow is nothing. That is the way, is it 
not, that you play the game? It is just 
that which leads to nothing, when we 
undertake to play the game with you 
men.’’ 

**So I have done a foolish thing in 
seeking to know my fate? Are you 
going to conduct ‘me to the nearest 
asylum ?”’ 





THE DECISION i912 


‘No, with such honest instincts one is 

never dangerously insane. You belong 
to the category of those who are per- 
mitted to wander in the country upon 
the condition that they do not attempt 
to set fire to the buildings, as you have 
just now attempted. Sometimes, even, 
if one is sure there are no matches in 
their pockets, they are invited to dinner 
in the evening.”’ 
' Then becoming serious, she add- 
ed, ‘‘My poor friend, do not for- 
get that I have passed the incendiary 
stage.’’ 

Such was the first interview when 
Tarragnoz pleaded his cause, forgetting 
to draw her out on the subject of Tu- - 
cheim, as he planned. This would in- 
dicate that a good lover would make a 





1922 THE DECISION 


bad judge in criminal cases unless the 
proof of guilt was overwhelming. 
The case was not lost, but he was 
wise enough to restrain himself for the 
moment. Like a good tactician, Paul 
decided that it was necessary to amuse 
the enemy while awaiting the hour of 
victory. His silence was all the more 
welcome, as, without asking even for a 
little love, he gave much and with timely 
constancy, knowing when to be silent or 
to speak, according to the disposition of 
Valentine, which he divined with mar- 
velous tact. He bore no resemblance to 
a lover repulsed, morose and filled with 
sighs. Besides, if he felt unhappy, he 
consoled himself with the thought that 
plenty of men would like to take his 
place. Hach day he was able to see 





THE DECISION 198 


Valentine alone amid admirable and 
poetic surroundings, and without being 
importunate he felt her confidence in 
him increase. 

When he was at the end of his visit, 
commenced, continued and_ finished, 
within a radius of three leagues around 
Auray, the only visible result was that 
his small Brittany horse knew by heart 
the turnings of a certain path across the 
fields. Upon this placid animal the 
rider could dream at his ease, even when 
he returned home by the light of the 
moon. Whether he was actually mak- 
ing progress toward the sought-for end, 
no one could conjecture, except perhaps. 
Madame Villedieu. She contentedly 
observed the deep sadness which her 
daughter was unable to conceal when 





1944 THE DECISION 





Paul went away. The correspondence 
between the countess and the captain 
became very active. On one side love 
filled the pages, on the other it was a 
question of anything but love; but the 
beauty did not close her windows to the 
serenade, and that was a good sign. 
Meanwhile, autumn drew near its close. 

According to Valentine, the early part 
of November that year was particularly 
rainy upon the coast of Morbihan. ‘‘ Be- 
sides,’’ she wrote, ‘‘I pitied mamma and 
allowed her to bring me back again to 
the borders of the Yvette a little earlier 
than usual. My sacrifice is diminished 
by the pleasure it gives her.’’ One 
might well ask if the mother was the 
only one in a hurry to see Paul again. 
However that might be, his calls were 





Tuer BETROTHAL, 


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3 
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F 
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THE DECISION 195 





resumed, and but a few evenings were 
missed. Above all, he did not fail to 
attend the first ‘‘Tuesday’”’ of the rue 
de 1’Yvette, and that afternoon, which 
to them seemed radiant in spite of the 
absent sun, Paul and Valentine found 
themselves again united in the little 
boudoir on the third floor. 

A mysterious electricity vibrated in 
the air, saying to the lovers, ‘‘At last 
your hour has come.’’ He fell on his 
knees, this time without speaking, and 
into his hands, like soft rosy fruit which 
falls because the constant suns of sum- 
mer have ripened it, the beautiful hand 
of the young woman fell, delightfully 
abandoned. Then he sought her lips. 
This was all the ceremony of their be- 
trothal. 


196 THE DECISION 


Too quickly the tea which was sent 
up disturbed their téte a téte. They 
knew the sweet childishness of very 
young lovers; the sugar tongs confis- 
cated, the fingers which replaced them 
kissed by eager lips and held for ran- 
som, the perfumed beverage drunk from 
the same cup—all those innocent things 
which are nothing yet signify every- 
thing; and all too soon—the clock struck 
seven. Valentine exclaimed to herself, 
‘‘What will my mother think ?”’ 

‘*Let us go to tell her.’’ 

‘‘No; permit me to disobey you al- 
ready. Let us not tell her this evening. 
Let us deceive her, but can we do it?— 
after the fashion of those who love 
smuggled goods and enjoy them in 
secret. If you knew, dear, how for a 





THE DECISION 197 


long time I have hidden myself—from 
you! In Brittany last summer, when I 
blamed you for proposing an unequal 
game of chance, for me the game was 
already nearly lost.’’ 

Upon her lips, which the smile did 
not at this time leave, Paul received the 
stakes. Then he asked, ‘‘ How long shall 
we hide ourselves ?’’ 

‘How long?’’ said she. ‘‘For us time 
no longer exists; to millions of unhappy 
beings this afternoon now ended would 
have appeared interminable; to us, has 
it lasted a second ?’’ 

*“No, my beloved. However, I am 
only at the threshold of happiness, and 
life is too short to lose a moment.”’ 

‘*Ah! but one period of mine was 
long! Now go; my mother has no vis- 





198 THE DECISION 


itor left, and she soon will come up here. 
A single glance will tell her everything 
if she sees us together. ‘To-morrow, 
when you arrive, my hair will be better 





arranged.”’ 

‘“Yes, but I shall not then be able to 
disarrange it.’’ 

‘‘How do you know ?’’ whispered she 
inhisear. ‘‘Chance furnishes occasions 
if we look for them.”’ 


cL 
‘“‘~ow YOU KNOW MY SECRET’’ 


For one week they loved ‘‘in secret,’’ 
so unsuccessfully, in fact, that Madame 
\Villedieu divined everything and was at 
the acme of delight. Not wishing the 
unhappiness of others, she arranged nu- 
merous ‘‘chances.’’ Paul, in their clan- 
destine colloquies, declared that for a 
thousand reasons the marriage ought to 
take place in Paris in December. 
Valentine preferred Brittany with the 
sun of May, the blue sky and the golden 
furze. This great question resolved, 
always in secret, they occupied them- 

199 


200 THE DECISION 


selves with details. To tell the truth, 
it was Valentine who arranged the de- 
tails, for Paul—he admitted it himself, 
had become incapable of putting two 
figures on a line or of arranging two 
ideas. But Valentine thought of every- 
thing, having a sure judgment and also 
that straightforward conscience which 
she appreciated in others. That was 
why one morning Paul received these 
pages relating ‘‘in detail’’ that which 
he had completely lost sight of: 





‘‘Dear, you are goodness itself. You have 
never asked me a question with reference to my 
previous life, apparently taking it for granted, 
to cite your somewhat studied speeches, that I 
have in a drawer the decree proving that I am . 
free. That decree, in effect, I have. It proves 
at the same time that I have, if not lied, at least 
lived a lie. Although neither my person nor 
my present situation would in fact be affected 


THE DECISION 201 


if I kept silent, I would not be worthy of you if 
I permitted the man whose name [I shall bear 
to believe that which I have made the world be- 
lieve, not by knavery, but by Christian charity. 
Beloved, master of my heart, judge me! 

‘*When one crosses a muddy road it is neces- 
sary to walk fast; please understand what I am 
about to say in a few words. The Count de la 
Guernerie, a charming man and a fine conversa- 
tionalist, accepted too quickly by my poor 
mother—I was but eighteen—was possessed of a 
terrible passion for gambling (you were sur- 
prised at my repulsion at the sight of cards). 
The love which he feigned was soon alienated. 
One morning [I learned that he had other vices. 
Some miserable creatures held in their hands 
that which remained of his reputation and even 
his liberty, for they had the proofs. My dowry 
was used to redeem those proofs. Then my 
uncle, who had friendly relations with the chief 
of police, obtained the necessary time for the 
guilty man to disappear. The unhappy man 
promised—and to that he was faithful—that no 
one should ever hear him spoken of again. 

‘‘Then we invented facts for the world; a 
story of married life that had become impossi- 





2022 THE DECISION 


ble; the loss of money (that at least was mot in- 
vented); a separation by mutual consent; 
Madame distressed and anxious to complain, but 
lacking the energy; Monsieur starting for Amer- 
ica, as much to forget the trouble as to repair 
his fortune. As for me, I was able, thanks to 
the kindness of my uncle, to hide myself in Brit- 
tany in such manner that the scandal was soon 
asleep. My mother and I, as you have seen, are 
anxious not to awaken it. 

‘‘Thus three years passed ; I never really felt 
sorry, having never loved that man. What 
made my life atrociously painful was the per- 
sistent disgust attached to my soul, just as cer- 
tain sickening odors seem continually in our 
nostrils. Finally, I learned that the fallen gen- 
tleman was dead and, this no one would have 
predicted, he died like a gentleman and a good 
Frenchman because—that was one of his last 
words—he did not want his wife to spend all 
her long life in despising him. In fact, my 
friend, I have wept for him, and now pity is 
mingled in my heart with other feelings. 

‘“‘The count did not go to America. Passing 
himself off for a Swiss named Walter, he served 
in the Foreign Legion. He found there one of 





THE DECISION — 208 


the most admirable men I have ever known, a 
military doctor who will be, I think, seated on 
high very near to Saint Vincent de Paul whose 
charity he imitates. He received the laical con- 
fession of the false Walter and his instructions 
in case of a sudden end. He cared for him when 
he was mortally wounded by a bullet, and it 
was through him that I learned of my widow- 
hood. 

‘“Thanks to him, also, the funeral report bore 
the true name of the dead man. Without that 
what could we do? When I was able to talk 
with the doctor—I have seen him many times 
—he employed all of his eloquence to make me 
admire the expiation, which was glorious and 
terrible, as he recounted it to me. He insisted, 
as if he were acting for a brother, that I grant 
my pardon to a repentant sinner, and I have for- 
given him. The doctor, Rudolph Tucheim— 
never forget the name—is my friend. You will 
yourself remember the meerschaum pipe which 
we bought together in Carlsbad. It was for him 
that it was destined. He has never been willing 
to aecept a more valuable souvenir. 

‘Now you know my secret, the only one in 
my life. I might have kept it since, naturally, 





204 THE DECISION 


it matters but little to you whether the count 
died in the South or in the West, but my con- 
science would have tortured me perpetually. 
You compared your own on a certain day to too 
narrow shoes. That phrase was the first that 
drew me nearer to you. 

“I am quite near now, and I say to you, good 
night, my friend, praying you to burn these 
pages. You will give me pleasure by never 
mentioning them. 

**A demain; I love you. 





SOW aT ENTINE.’? 


The phantom now resumed an atti- 
tude which was not even a menace but 
a joyful and cruel triumph. Tarragnoz 
saw it in front of him, although it was 
still broad daylight. To the convulsions 
of physical torture, displayed at the 
highest pitch, there was joined upon the ~ 
visage of the dead a grin so odious that 
for a moment all pity vanished from 
the heart of Paul. From the wide open, 


THE DECISION — 205 





staring eyes one question came forth, a 
question which the grinning lips, speech- 
less forever, would never have been 
able when animated to articulate more 
clearly, “‘What are you going to do 
now ??? 

At first a catastrophe appeared in- 
evitable; but Paul decided to fall like 
a soldier betrayed by fortune, over- 
whelmed by numbers, not as an awk- 
ward straggler knocked on the head at 
the turn of the road. Above all, it was 
necessary to think of Valentine. In 
some way or other he must have twenty- 
- four hours in which to formulate a plan 
of action. 

‘Poor little one,’’ thought hs “like 
yourself, I am going to lie, and for a 
purpose not less excusable.”’ 


206 THE DECISION 


Then he sent this despatch to the rue 
de 1’Y vette: 





‘Received your communication at the mo- 
ment of mounting my horse for an unexpected 
inspection. It is probable that we shall return 
in the middle of the night. Do not look for me 
before to-morrow. Is it necessary for me to say, 
that I admire you still more, but I could not love 
you more than I do.’’ 


The clock indicated nine in the morn- 
ing. Having obtained from his chief 
the evening before leave of absence 
for the entire day, he was obliged 
during the short truce to imagine 
some way to reply to the terrible 
question. But suddenly another ques- 
tion came to his distracted mind: 
‘‘Can I marry the widow of the man I 
killed ?”’ 

Was he—and this doubt returned to 


THE DECISION 207 


him for the thousandth time—a veri- 
table criminal, or a victim of fate placed 
in a situation which suspended the 
effect of the moral law? Until now 
he had never consulted with anyone 
upon this question of conscience, which 
he had thought would remain purely 
theoretical since the dead never leave 
their tomb. Alas! His dead had come 
to life under another name. His name 
was not Walter, but the Count de la 
Guernerie. ‘‘It matters but little to 
you,’’ his widow had written, ‘‘whether 
my husband died in the South or in the 
West.’’ On the contrary, it signified a 
great deal. 

The fragile vessel of the human mind, 
when the tempest blows, is in a few sec- 
onds carried from one pole to the other 





2088 THE DECISION 


of decision. In turn, Paul resolved to 
remain silent and marry Valentine; 
then he decided to break with her for- 
ever under some pretext; then to ac- 
cept her as arbitrator and abide by her 
judgment. Would the recollection of 
each one of his caresses cause her to 
shudder with horror? Would she ever 
be able to see him again? He was al- 
ways brought back to the one question, 
recapitulating all the others. ‘“‘Have I 
committed a crime or am I the victim 
of a fatality ?”’ 

Perhaps one can imagine the chaos of 
an intellect which for three years had 
interrogated itself in doubt and solitude. 
On one hand Paul lacked the severe but 
luminous principle of divine moral dog- 
ma; on the other, he had never been 





THE DECISION — 209 


able to open his heart to any confidant 
whatsoever. 

Rudolph Tucheim was marked for 
such a role, but Paul would first have to 
say to him, ‘‘It was you who, deceived 
by a lie, furnished me with the deadly 
poison.”’ 

Thus, beaten by the most violent in- 
ward tempest that he had ever known in 
his life, it seemed to the unhappy Paul 
that he had lived many hours since he 
opened the envelope, which was just 
like so many others except that they had 
been full of hope and gladness. How- 
ever, toward the solution of the ques- 
tion which must be settled and which 
might prove to be a new fatality or a 
new crime, he had not advanced a step. 
His eyes sought the clock—quarter past 





210 THE DECISION 


nine. He took his hat and went out, 
fearing, if he prolonged this téte a téte 
with himself, that he would lose a con- 
siderable part of his reason, already in- 
sufficient to pull him out of his frightful 
dilemma. 

Having walked for some time at ran- 
dom, he found himself before the portal 
of a church. The faithful were entering 
or leaving, slowly or in haste, carrying — 
upon their faces a tranquillity which 
Tarragnoz sorrowfully envied. Sud- 
denly he remembered a remark which 
Rudolph Tucheim had made to him, 
‘*Yes, I go to confession; if you knew 
how good it is.’’ Without hesitating, 
he went up the steps, wishing to try, 
not the sacrament, but the right which 
all men possess to say to the priest: 





THE DECISION” 211 


‘Listen to me! I know that my secret 
will die with you.’’ Already, in his 
thirst for any remedy whatever, he was 
troubled at being obliged to wait. On 
the further side of the church he met a 
white-haired ecclesiastic directing his 
steps toward the door. 

‘*Without disturbing you too much,”’ 
asked Paul, ‘‘are you able to grant me 
a few moments’ conversation ?”’ 

The old abbe smiled without replying, 
but his gesture signified, ‘‘I am not here 
for anything else.”’ 

When they were alone in a sacristy, 
the priest paused to see if the visitor. 
would seat himself or kneel. Paul took 
a chair. Eager for relief, without seek- 
ing a preliminary explanation, he com- 
menced with the words: 





212 THE DECISION 


“‘T killed a man three years ago. 
At that time the act seemed to me 
to be lawful. Since then I have 
had doubts and I consult you be- 
cause you have wisdom and experi- 
ence.”’ 

‘¢Eixperience, at least. Am I right in 
assuming that this was the result of a 
duel?’ | 

‘No, but a deliverance implored with 
shrieks of pain which are ringing in my 
ears at this moment.”’ 

Paul recounted the lugubrious his- 
tory; then he remained silent, his eyes 
fixed upon the -impassive face of his 
auditor. The priest meditated a short 
time before putting this question, ‘‘If I 
understand you correctly, you pretend 
that your conscience was not opposed 





THE DECISION 2138 


to—the deliverance accomplished by 
you ?”’ 

‘“The doctor had declared that death 
would be certain and inevitable, even in 
the best hospital in Paris.”’ 

‘Did you consult him upon the law- 
ful or unlawful character of the act pre- 
meditated by you?” 

‘*He would not listen to me. ‘In such 
a case,’ said he, ‘a doctor has not even 
the right to ask the question.’ ”’ 

‘*No more have I, a priest. Non oc- 
cides. Minister and servant of God, 
think you I can discuss a command- 
ment, troublesome in certain cases I ad- 
mit, but perfectly clear to my under- 
standing and also as clear as any com- ~ 
mand you have ever received from your 
superior officers ?”’ 





214 THE DECISION 


‘¢ And that is all that you, a minister 
and servant of God, are able to do for 





me?” 

‘‘Qn the contrary, [ can indeed do for 
you that which is given to no human 
power. I can, if God accords you the 
grace of sincere repentance, send you 
away in peace, with your conscience de- 
livered of its burden.’’ 

‘*Our understanding of the word con- 
science is not the same. Mine is human 
because I am a man.”’ 

“The human conscience, as you call 
it, means something else. In my eyes, a 
determination contrary to the catechism 
bears the same relation that a soldier’s 
conscience, contrary to discipline, does 
in yours. It is reason substituted for 
the superior rule. But see where this 


THE DECISION — 215 


brings you! Your reason disturbs you 
to-day as a result of the act which it 
permitted you to commit yesterday.”’ 

‘*Perhaps we ought to regret the blind 
faith of the vanished ages,—but one last 
question. This time I address myself 
to the sage who knows all the compli- 
cations of life, and not to the priest. 
Suppose, in this case, that the man who 
delivered the dying one is on the point 
of marrying the widow. Do you decide 
that he could proceed ?”’ 

‘* Ah! there is a beautiful proof of the 
usefulness of the catechism. Those who 
have not passed in it have not the least 
idea of the number of complications that 
it turns aside even in the material ex-” 
istence. If the man of your hypothesis 
had obeyed the commandment, Non oc- 





2146 THE DECISION 


cides, he would be a very worthy hus- 
band, after having been a friend, de- 
voted to the point of heroism. What 
more can I say? You summon me as a 
pilot for a vessel whose compass you 
have abolished.’’ 

‘You can at least pray for the crew 
in the wreck.’’ 

‘‘That I shall do with all my heart. 
You are very unhappy ?’’ 

“‘T do not think there are many men 
more unhappy than I at this moment. 
We shall meet again, perhaps.’’ 

‘That, among other blessings, is the 
one that I shall ask for you.”’ 





XII 
THE REVELATION 


Paul, once more alone with his an- 
guish in the tumult of the street, thought 
at first ‘‘I am no further advanced.’’ 
Nevertheless, the calm silence of the 
chureh, the sympathetic words of the 
priest, brought to him an astonishing 
pacification of the nerves. The phantom 
held itself discreetly in the background, 
estimating, doubtless, that a creditor 
ought to accord to the debtor the time 
to turn himself after legal action is 
taken. 

Suddenly, almost unexpectedly, the | 

217 


218 THE DECISION 


truth appeared very clear to the eyes of 
Tarragnoz, as an island rises suddenly 
out of the mist when the breeze awakens. 

‘“No,’’ admitted he, ‘‘I can no longer 
think of taking the place of the man I 
killed. It matters not whether I hasten 
the certain end by an hour or by a day. 
It was I who gave him the merciful 
stroke. No one knows anything of it. 
Even she might remain in ignorance 
of it all her life. But my life, already 
haunted, would be nothing but a night- 
mare, poisoning each moment, even the 
sweetest. It is necessary to say adieu 
to her. But how?’’ 

His heart was almost broken when he 
pictured her despair. He would have 
embraced a stranger who came to him 
Saying, ‘‘Thou shalt not see her again; 





THE DECISION 219 





thou shalt no more hear her name. But 
be ye without disquietude; the secrets of 
the magicians are mine; with one stroke 
of the wand I will make her forget and 
be happy.”’ 

Alas! magicians have disappeared. 
He would have to act for himself. As 
he walked he considered the different 
modes of action which offered them- 
selves to him. 

To kill himself? Surely, that was the 
simplest way; but by his death he would 
displace the question without. explain- 
ing it. Instead of explaining why he 
did not marry Valentine, it would be 
necessary to explain why he had taken | 
his own life—two whys making but one. 
To break with her gradually? To make 
her believe that he was unfaithful? 


2200 THE DECISION 





That would be a grotesque comedy above 
the powers of any man. SBesides, he 
knew only too well that some day, see- 
ing her sad or indignant, he would 
throw off the mask and, falling to the 
knees of the only woman that the world 
contained for him, he would bring mat- 
ters back to the same point. ) 

The same terrible conclusion forced 
itself on him at every turn. He must 
imitate the loyal frankness of Valentine 
and recite to her the drama. By word 
of mouth? Many reasons dissuaded 
him from that course. The principal 
one was this: The history of the affair 
finished, he would be obliged to endure 
the anguish of the last scene, of the sep- 
aration, of the word of farewell thrown 
~ with horror, or—still more frightful— 


THE DECISION 221 


with tearful lamenting. Then it would 
be better to write, as she herself had 
given him the example. At once he 
gave his aimless course the right direc- 
tion and proceeded toward his home, 
surprised to discover that he had not 
left his own neighborhood. It seemed 
as if he had walked many miles. A! 
clock indicated to him that it was but 
half-past ten and that caused this des- 
perate reflection: ‘‘Would he have to 
go on twenty or thirty years at this co- 
efficient of velocity ?’’ 

But he was anxious not to divert his 
mind from the task imposed, the most 
difficult, without doubt, that anyone in © 
the world had before him, for he dis- 
covered that an action, considered al- 
most a duty at the time and place, took 





222 THE DECISION 





on a facetious resemblance to a crime 
pure and simple when he was obliged to 
justify it before any tribunal whatever. 
His defense consisted in showing to the 
wife—disarmed by the expiation—her 
husband dying in torture, begging for 
death with the cries of an animal dis- 
sected alive and the doctor himself, pale 
with horror, powerless, making the sign 
which condemned without hope. 

The doctor! Paul rapped his fore- 
head and the passerby might well have 
imagined by the brightening up of his 
face that they were meeting an inventor 
who had finally mastered his idea. Ru- 
dolph Tucheim, the best witness for the 
prisoner that he could summon in this 
lost cause, was also the best adapted to 
perform the mission. That safe man 


THE DECISION 228 


had already accomplished a similar task 
in the prologue of the dénowement 
about to explode. 

Tt was true that Tarragnoz would 
first be obliged to confess his deception ; 
he had by a falsehood obtained the mor- 
phine entreated by the dying man. He 
might expect harsh words from the 
mouth of his old friend—his shoulders 
raised with pity. 

‘*Poor Tucheim!’’ thought he, ‘‘T will 
listen to every word without becoming 
angry—in my present situation!’ 

He had already jumped into a eab. 
Unfortunately, as the journey was long, 
he had too much time for reflection, so 
that he made the affair complex when 
in reality it was very simple. 

‘*My ambassador is also my rival,”’ 





224 THE DECISION 


thought he. ‘*Without doubt he is, or 
rather he was, an unhappy rival, consid- 
ering Valentine as a queen placed above 
all longing. All the same, he told me 
that ‘the queen’ had divined his folly.”’ 
‘What a triumph for a lover who hopes 
for nothing, to be able to place at the 
foot of the throne the head of the man 
who had hoped for everything! 

This entrance of jealousy upon the 
scene at the moment when Tarragnoz 
was already suffering a thousand deaths 
was for him a refinement of torture. 

‘‘Return!’’ cried he to the driver. 
Then thinking he would be obliged to 
write the terrible letter, ‘‘No,’’ ordered 
he at once, ‘‘continue.”’ 

‘*Tdiot!’’ murmured the driver of the 
cab. 





THE DECISION — 225 


When the doctor ten minutes later 
opened his door for the captain, it was 
almost an enemy, without knowing it, 
that he had in his presence. 

‘I. come to bring you some very 
agreeable news,’’ announced Tarragnoz, 
after formally shaking hands with the 
doctor. 

‘*You do not have that appearance,”’ 
observed Tucheim, becoming serious in 
the presence of the understood sarcasm. 

‘*Fiven if the news is good, it is not so 
for me; permit me to proceed rapidly. 
I came to solicit your kindness, to ask 
you to perform an act which no other 
living being would know better how to 
accomplish.’’ 

‘*And of what does it consist?’’ 

*‘IT want you to inform the Countess 


‘ 





2266 THE DECISION 


de la Guernerie at the earliest moment 
of the breaking of my engagement with 
her. Let me say in passing that you 
ought to have warned me that my ex- 
sergeant Walter had been her husband. 
I presume that you were in her confi- 
dence.”’ 

‘*Yes, it was I who informed the 
countess of her widowhood. Upon my 
return to Paris I talked with her, as L 
had promised. I have seen her many 
times. She has been pleased to say that 
she is grateful to me, but, upon my 
honor, I was ignorant of your engage- 
ment,’’ 

‘*Be that as it may, it is impossible 
for me to marry the widow—of Ser- 
geant Walter. That probably astonishes 
you.”? 





THE DECISION 227 


*“No,”’ said Tucheim, without looking 
at the captain, ‘‘I understand your 
scruples.”’ 

‘“You know then ?”’ 

‘¢T know that you asked me for a flask 
of morphine for yourself, at the time 
when your companion was suffering— 
God will bear witness—the most terri- 
ble pain that the human organism could 
know. I know that the death of the 
wounded—of the condemned man—su- 
pervened soon after you received the 
flask. Your manner of looking at the 
question of life and death was not the 
Same as mine; it was easy for me to put 
the facts together, so that your decision 
surprised me but little, although I was 
able to measure the bitterness of it.’’ 

‘*Please do not insist. I count upon 





228 THE DECISION 


you to explain to the countess that it is 
not an inexcusable criminal who disap- 
pears from her life. Even if I com- 
mitted a sin, show to her that my pun- 
ishment is hard enough to merit her 
pity. But you will say what is neces- 
sary. I am not disturbed upon that 
point. Besides, I imagine that the 
embassy is not unpleasant to you.’’ 

This time the gray eyes of the Alsa- 
tian did not refuse the battle. Paul had 
no trouble in reading the question which 
they clearly asked. He responded, 
with his hand pointing towards the ta- 
ble, ‘‘I was with the countess when she 
chose that meerschaum pipe. She de- 
signed the monogram in my presence. 
‘The present of a queen’ you said to 
me.”’ 





THE DECISION — 229 


‘*Yes,’’ interrupted Tucheim, ‘‘the 
one time in my life when I was not 
known to keep a secret. But I have 
never aspired to marry Madame de la 
Guernerie. I think you are convinced 
of that.’’ 

‘*No matter; you know the proverbs 
of the Arabs: ‘The dog does not eat the 
hay, yet he bites the goat which wants 
to eat the hay.’ Come, doctor, you have 
a fine opportunity to remove the 
wretched goat forever from the flowers 
of the meadow.’’ 

“Yes, the opportunity would be fine 
—for a dishonest man.”’ 

‘*What would be the dishonesty in 
your going to the countess and telling 
her that I killed her husband? That is 
what I ask you to do.”’ 





230 THE DECISION 





“‘Captain, you did not kill Bie 9 
Walter.”’ 

‘* Alas! With these hands I gave the 
unhappy man three injections of your 
morphine, stroke by stroke, without 
even withdrawing the needle from the 
skin.’’ 

‘7 was certain you would do it, and 
that was why my morphine—was not 
morphine. I made a liquid for you of 
the same appearance, but less danger- 
ous. Had I refused you, God knows 
what other means you would have 
taken.’’ 

‘‘Yet he died almost immediately.’’ 

‘‘Perhaps his hour had come, or, in- 
deed, that it was a case of auto-sugges- 
tion. We do not know how far that 
can go. I have never seen a stranger 


THE DECISION 231 





case. Whatever it was, you did not kill 
the Count de la Guernerie. Conse- 
quently seek no longer for an ambassa- 
dor. That shows you that a ‘parson’ 
can be of some use.”’ 

‘Will you shake hands with me?’’ 
said Tarragnoz, with tears in his eyes. 

The men separated after a hearty 
hand clasp. One of them again took 
the cab and gave the driver an address 
which may be guessed; the other filled 
his meerschaum pipe, looked at it for a 
long time and, without lighting it, placed 
it upon the table. When a smoker sulks 
his tobacco it indicates, as everyone 
knows, that he is passing a bad crisis. 


XIII 
THE DECISION 


‘“‘The ladies are still at luncheon, 
captain.”’ : 

The visitor came down to earth at 
this response, which he received in the 
rue de 1’Yvette. The announcement 
that the ladies were still. at dinner 
would have surprised him less, for since 
reading his morning mail the idea of 
duration of time, which is our interior 
clock, no longer operated in his brain. 

‘*L will return soon,”’ said he to the 
servant. 

He started to walk along the neigh- 

232 


THE DECISION 233% 


boring streets, which at that time were 
almost deserted. 

Did not this respite come opportunely 
to prevent a false movement by which 
he would risk foundering his ship with- 
in sight of port? He would have run 
to the feet of Valentine and related to 
her, while thrilled with delight, the fear 
which he had had of losing her. He 
thought only of himself, of the bound 
that he had made in a single morning 
from felicity to despair, from despair to 
happiness recovered. But he was not 
the only one interested in that question. 
Although satisfied himself, the situation 
threatened to appear less simple to a 
woman, and especially to a woman sub- © 
ject to religious scruples. Innocent of 
the fact, was he not guilty of the in- 





234 THE DECISION 


tention? Without doubt the words pro- 
nounced by Tucheim in Algeria and by 
the priest two hours earlier would again 
find themselves in the mouth of Valen- 





' tine. Non occides! What conclusion 


would be drawn? What sentence ren- 
dered? Was it wise to confess his sin, 
to seek a judge there who would weigh 
her verdict, when he could if he chose 
to remain silent, find only a loving 
woman opening her arms? Why speak? 
Why disturb the peace of a happy soul? 
Tucheim, the safest of confidants, had 
declared ‘‘You did not kill!’’ 

But Reason, the guide, better inspired 
this time than it was by the bedside of 
Walter, presented to him this dilemma: 
‘“‘If your fiancée determines that no bar- 
rier exists between you, would it not be 


THE DECISION ~ 285 


better to have her affirm it? If, in her 
eyes, a barrier exists, by what name 
should a man be called who would dare 
to overleap it? How could he speak of 
love to his wife possessed through sur- 
prise and ignorance? And how scorn- 
ful would be the laugh of the grinning 
phantom lying in wait for the nuptial 
bed !’’ | 

“*‘T will speak,’’ decided Tarragnoz, 
‘and I will speak at once.”’ 

As this was the ‘‘day’’ of Madame 
Villedieu, on leaving the table she had 
returned to her room in order to dress, 
a proceeding which always took consid- 
erable time. Madame de la Guernerie, 
at the sight of Paul, manifested ahappy ~ 
surprise. 

‘This, then, is the ‘unexpected in- 





236 THE DECISION 





spection’ that your telegram announced! 
iWhat an idea to come so early. Of 
course you have had your luncheon, for 
without it I hope that you would not 
take a hundred steps in the street. Why 
this strange appearance, my dear! Are 
you going to start off, seat yourself, or 
remain standing ?”’ 

She looked at him more closely, be- 
came a little pale, and, lowering her 
voice, asked: ‘‘Was it my letter that 
put you in this state? Did you come 
to tell me that?’’ 

“‘T came to tell you that I love 
you.”’ 

*‘Ah, well! Then?’’ 

‘*T also came to tell you that it was I 
who picked up your—Sergeant Walter 
when he fell, yonder!’’ 


THE DECISION 287 


Valentine utiered a stifled cry. ‘‘ Let 
us go up to my boudoir,” said she. 

When they were sheltered from all 
indiscreet ears, she spoke. ‘‘It was you, 
then, who risked your life for him? 
Doctor Tucheim doubtless mentioned 
your name, but the name was unknown 
to me—and I confess I have done my 
best to forget that end——”’ 

**You might say, that rehabilitation.”’ 

“Yes, it might be a rehabilitation in 
the eyes of others. In fact I have par- 
doned him.”’’ 

“* As a good Christian ; but who knows 
if the good Christian that you are will 
be able to absolve me? 

‘‘For the second time this morning 
the same recital is imposed upon me. 
It will be hard to listen to, for you who 





238 ° THE DECISION 


love me—and whom I love. In a mo- 
ment, perhaps, you will have only hor- 
ror forme. But this is the occasion for 
me to repeat my parable @ propos of 
conscience. Could I drag myself along 
by your side the rest of my life with 
aching feet? No, I will not!’’ 

‘*T think,”’ said she, ‘‘I could pardon 
you for anything save having been 





wanting in honor, but I have no fear 
upon that point.’’ 

‘My honor is safe,”’ said Paul, ‘‘as to 
the rest—we shall soon see.”’ 

He commenced the history of that 
night, which he would gladly forget, but 
which fate obliged him constantly to re- 
member. Tucheim, out of pity for the 
nerves of one poor woman, had not 
given to the picture its poignant relief. 


THE DECISION ~— 289 


Paul, on the contrary, advocate of his 
own cause, made no attempt to mitigate 
the horror. He was careful to compel 
his judge to pass through the same 
anguish that determined the final act; 
pleading insanity, he was at least ob- 
liged to show that a man could become 
mad, after enduring such frightful 
hours. 

This desperate eloquence, he could 
_ see, did not fail to produce its effect. 
Madame de la Guernerie, her hands 
clasped, her eyes closed, submitted to 
the ordeal without speaking, without 
failing, except through her shudderings 
as she listened to the words of Tarrag- 
noz. But when he related his visit to 
Tucheim, the morphine requested and 
promised, Valentine, hiding her face 





240 THE DECISION 





in her hands and unable to restrain an 
exclamation of fright——_ 

‘*Pray say no more! I understand— 
and you are in my house! Could 
nothing stop you? Great Heaven!’’ 

“*T am here because Tucheim sent me. 
Just now he said to me, ‘That which I 
gave you that night was not morphine. 
You had no hand in the death of the 
unfortunate man.’ Shall I bring you 
his testimony? He is ready to come.’’ 

‘No, I believe you. But you wanted 
to kill!’’ 

There was a painful silence; then 
giving way again, she softly wept. 
Paul, fearing that these tears were but 
the eternal adieu to their hopes, humbly 
supplicated, ‘‘Have pity for me—for 
yourself, since you love me. Do not say 


THE DECISION 241 


the word which will disunite our lives. 
See the things as they are; the death of 
no man is between us.”’ 

She again repeated, ‘‘No, but you 
wanted to kill!’ 

Then he tried another argument. 
‘*Dare I cite to you the precept which I 
have always admired? ‘Judge not!’ 
Who knows, had you found yourself in 
my place, what course you would have 
followed.”’ 

‘*Since you cite our precepts, do not 
forget the one which would have guided 
me, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ and had you 
heeded that we should have never known 
the anguish of the present moment.”’ 

Her tears redoubled. Paul under- 
standing that the order of arrest trem- 
bled upon the lips of the judge, fell upon 





2422 THE DECISION 





his knees. He did not even presume to 
touch the hand of Valentine, for he was 
in terror. For the third time since 
morning the irresistible commandment 
came back to his ear: Non occides. 

Madame de la Guernerie finally dried 
her eyes and with a firm voice pro- 
nounced this sentence, which Paul wel- 
comed with ecstasy, as it was only ban- 
ishment for a week—he expected some- 
thing more grievous. 

“‘Tuesday, at this hour, we will see 
each other again—if in the interval I 
have not manifested to you a contrary. 
desire. Now leave me. I can bear no 
more.”’ 

Tarragnoz, decidedly consecrated to 
the unusual, experienced each morning 
an impression which was as remote as 


THE DECISION 248 





possible from the commonplace, in the 
fear that he would perceive in his mail 
the writing of the woman he adored. 
Every morning he turned his eyes away 
when his orderly brought him his let- 
ters, not wishing anyone to see his face 
if the suspended sword fell upon him. 
As he slept but little, he was not dis- 
turbed by nightmares and the phantom 
remained invisible. Besides, his real 
nightmare in the future would no longer 
be upon the frontiers of Morocco, but 
in a small house in the rue de 1’Yvette. 

The Tuesday following, no thunder 
having rolled in that direction, he 
started after a luncheon as unappre- 
ciated as the one he had forgotten on 
his table eight days previous. Twenty 
times since morning he had oscillated 


244 THE DECISION 


from hope to fear. Hope said to him, 
‘*She would not be so cruel as to make 
you come only to immolate you with her 
hand.’’ ‘‘She might, indeed, wish to jus- 
tify in your sight her condemnation,”’ 
suggested Fear. In the presence of 
Valentine he found himself not much 
advanced, her appearance was so grave 
and serious. She extended her hand to 
him and her straightforward, honest 
look did not turn aside with the con- 
fusion of a tender approbation. LEvi- 
dently this was not to be a question of 
tenderness. 

“‘T have,’’ said she, ‘‘reflected much 
and prayed much—for you, perhaps still 
more than for myself. Two considera- 
tions trace for me my duty. First, I 





have made you a sacred promise; next, 


THE DECISION — 245 





in the eyes of the world, nothing author- 
ized me to break it.”’ 

The court evidently did not desire to 
condemn, but Paul felt that he was be- 
fore astern tribunal. Relieved by Val- 
entine’s words of his fear of losing her, 
the thought that he might no longer find 
the same heart in the same woman, 
caused him but little less terror. He 
sadly formulated this plaint, which was 
the all or nothing of a veritable lover. 

‘*Tt is not the payment of a debt which 
I ask for. Do you fear a legal process ?”’ 

‘*Perhaps,’’ admitted she. 

Astonished at this language so un- 
usual, and dreading other wounds, Paul 
remained silent. She divined the suf- 
fering inflicted. ‘‘Let us understand 
each other. The adversary which at- 


246 THE DECISION 


tacks me is myself, not you. During 
this long week it was against myself 
that I kept up this horribly obscure 
process. In the eyes of the world, I re- 
peat once more, nothing separates us. 
Human morality would probably ab- 
solve you as it has formed your reason; 
but there is a divine morality, which is 
my morality. Before my conscience you 
are guilty of a murder by intention.” 
‘*'Then,’’ groaned Tarragnoz, ‘‘it was 
to hear an adieu that I came?’’ 
‘‘Have I the right to reproach you 
for a situation which is my fault? You 
honestly warned me during our first 
meeting. In your soul the place of re- 
ligious dogma remains empty. It was 
dangerous for our future, but becoming 
blind—you know how—lI have gone on. 





THE DECISION 247 


No, I have not the right to punish you. 
So much the worse for me if I suffer 
from it.”’ 

‘‘And I have promised you that you 
will be the happiest of women!’’ 

‘‘T shall not be the happiest of women 
—in certain respects. I shall tremble 
night and day at the thought of that 
other life, which may separate us if you 
leave this world with a crime upon your 
conscience; but, inspired by my love, I 
shall unceasingly offer one prayer which 
some day will be granted. ‘Then, oh! 
my dear, I shall be the happiest of 
women in all truth.”’ 

Paul, without responding, consid- 
ered the extent, until then ignored, 
of the sacrifice that he had just re- 
ceived. 





248 THE DECISION 





‘*How much nobler you are than I,”’’ 
sighed he. 

‘**T am not nobler, but perhaps I love 
better. Courage! The hoped for hour 
will come, even if it requires a miracle. 
Let us try to smile. Come and embrace 
your wife!”’ 

Astonished to see that he did not 
hasten to obey, she interrogated him 
with the tender look of her beautiful 
eyes. 

‘*Keep your kiss,’’ said he, ‘‘for the 
moment when you shall no longer see 
upon my brow that which frightens 
your faithful heart.’’ 

Valentine understood, but, not wish- 
ing to extract a conversion as others 
would extract a gift of jewels—‘‘Do not 
go too fast,’’ counseled she, her voice 


THE DECISION 249 


again becoming grave. ‘‘If you are 
Saying this merely to satisfy the caprice 
of a devotee I should rather have you 
remain an unbeliever. I have never 
been able to pardon Henry IV. for havy- 
ing said, if he really did say it, that 
Paris was well worth one mass.”’ 

» “We shall not go too fast, dear 
Saint,’’ said Tarragnoz, kissing her 
hand, ‘‘and to show you that this is 
Serious, you will not see me for some 
days; and during that time—a mass will 
be worth more than Paris.”’ 





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